Redundancies loom at Rangers

Administrators will deliver “significant” redundancies among the Rangers playing squad tomorrow if there is insufficient progress in talks over wage cuts and a quick sale.

Duff and Phelps resumed talks with players’ representatives today after failing to finalise an agreement over wage cuts on Tuesday night, despite all players accepting cuts of up to 75% in principle.

The corporate recovery team have also been holding talks with potential buyers after moving to accelerate a possible sale.

Rangers’ administrators welcomed some good news today when a High Court judge ordered a trial to decide the legal owners of £3.6million once held in the account of owner Craig Whyte’s London-based lawyers.

However, that money will not be available in the short term and tomorrow will see major decisions.

While Rangers were hit with a Scottish Football Association disrepute charge and told by the governing body that owner Craig Whyte was not “fit and proper” to hold a position in the game, administrators were busy on a number of fronts.

Some players’ agents held talks this afternoon aimed at securing the wage-cut agreement that would limit redundancies.

Administrators had blamed player advisors for failure in that regard on Tuesday night for demanding “personal conditions”, however it is believed that the main condition some players were looking for was a guarantee that no workers would lose their jobs.

It is also understood that planned meetings with players’ agents on Wednesday morning were postponed at short notice by the administrators.

Joint-administrator David Whitehouse, who has stated the need to save £1million a month, today told reporters outside the High Court: “Our position at the moment is that we are still in negotiations with the players.

“The players know what needs to be done. We can deliver that funding gap purely by wage reductions.

“Over the last two days we have also been speaking to interested parties to gauge the extent to which we can bring those discussions forward to deliver an earlier sale of the business in a timetable that would minimise redundancies.

“We will have a discussion with the players tomorrow when we know what timetable we could work with and, against the backdrop of that, we would be able to determine what level of redundancies would then need to be made.

“But at the same time we are still hopeful the players will deliver what they were hoping to deliver on Tuesday evening.

“We need to know if we have an ongoing funding structure otherwise we will make significant redundancies within the playing staff.”

Whitehouse stressed that the club did not have to be sold in the next 24 hours.

He added: “During the course of yesterday and today we are meeting with very serious interested parties.”

Whitehouse had previously raised the prospect of liquidation and a new company emerging if they needed to force through a quick sale but he again claimed that a voluntary creditors’ agreement was the preferred route out of administration.

And he responded to questions over why they have not made significant savings more than three weeks into the process of trying to secure money for creditors and keep the club alive.

So far, director of football Gordon Smith and chief operating officer Ali Russell have been the only casualties of the administration process, although players Matt McKay, Mervan Celik and Gregg Wylde volunteered departures.

Whitehouse said in a statement: “There has also been comment on the decision-making process and whether so-called tough decisions should have been taken earlier in the process, such as making players redundant.

“This would not have been a tough decision – it would have been folly.

“The scale of the cost-cutting required is very substantial indeed – and making a few players redundant along the way would not have achieved the necessary savings.

“Furthermore, we are striving to strike a balance where we retain valuable assets of the business such as players, both for their performance and their potential value, and this strategy is understood by major stakeholders.”

Rangers’ administrators welcomed some good news today when a High Court judge ordered a trial to decide the legal owners of £3.6million once held in the account of owner Craig Whyte’s London-based lawyers.

Whitehouse welcomed a judge’s decision to hold a further hearing on March 30 as they try to ensure the £3.6million once held by Collyer Bristow is given to the club, although he said it would be helpful in the long term rather than influential immediately.

The judge will not deliver his verdict on the same day and several parties claim the money is theirs.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs say £2.8million of the money is theirs – the same sum that they were owed by Rangers for player compensation schemes when Whyte took over.

Merchant Gemini Turnaround Fund is also looking for some of the money. The fund was launched in April last year and Whyte was company secretary.

Jerome Pension Fund also laid claim to some of the money. Jerome’s parent company is the Worthington Group, in which Whyte’s Liberty Capital bought a 7.5% stake in 2010.

Ticketus, who paid £24.4million into a Collyer Bristow account for future season tickets, may also make a claim. Their money was used by Whyte to pay off the club’s bank debt, a key pledge of his £1 buyout.