Rangers vice-chairman John Bennett has insisted that the Light Blues won’t be forced into selling players to repay loans from directors – despite the club’s board ploughing millions into the Gers in recent seasons.
The Ibrox side have recently launched a share option which will allow fans to invest almost £7million into the Gers.
The likes of Bennett, chairman Douglas Park and former chair Dave King have poured cash into Rangers through loans over the last six years.
However, Bennett is adamant that any player sales won’t be used to clear the loans and instead will go towards improving Steven Gerrard’ squad.
“The short answer is no. Utterly not,” Bennett told the Price of Football Podcast when asked if sales would be used to clear the loans.
Our whole model, our whole planning – no. No player sales to repay our loan, including mine.
“Absolutely not. Not part of the plan, not going to happen.
“Those plans must be seen – and this is such an important thing for me, it’s something I thought long and hard about, and I’ll tell you when it was, it was when I was in France on holiday last August and I’m thinking – if you simplify things and depersonalise it, take it away from Rangers, any business should have permanent capital.
“That’s the equity capital and this issue is an issue of permanent equity capital.
“And that’s what if you look at what we’ve done as director investors and known director investors in the six years, what have we done? We have steadfastly and consistently re-equitised the business. We’ve gone to shareholders at each AGM and asked for permission to issue shares.
“Whilst we’ve contributed soft loans, we then once we we’ve got the the shareholders permission, we’ve equitised the soft loans, we’ve converted the soft loans into permanent equity capital. Any business must stand on permanent capital first and foremost, that’s the equity.”
Sales likely this summer for Rangers
While Bennett insists any player sales won’t go to paying off loans, it’s clear there will be at least one or two big departures from Ibrox this summer.
Rangers have spent heavily to close the gap to Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership and overhaul their bitter rivals.
With a return to the Champions League on the horizon, there will need to be a balance struck between bringing in big money and making the side weaker.
With an interesting few months coming up for the Light Blues, the additions of Fashion Sakala and Nnamdi Ofoborh show the Gers aren’t resting on their laurels ahead of the new season – however, Rangers fans are still waiting to see which of their heroes will be moved on this summer.
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