BBC Scotland has learned a broad wage cut agreement with Rangers players has been agreed to keep redundancies down.
Steven Whittaker and Steven Naismith have already struck deals to take a 75% wage cut.
It is being suggested that they made the decision to help administrator Duff and Phelps avoid major redundancies at the Scottish champions.
The administrator had delayed until Friday an announcement on job cuts in order to agree a deal with the squad.
Joint administrator Paul Clark said on Thursday that he was confident a deal would be reached.
He thought it would thereby justify the time it has taken to impose cost-cutting measures.
"We're in the final stages of that process and it's going to deliver very substantial cuts," he told BBC Scotland.
"We're looking to deliver cost-cutting of around £1m per month and that's something I think we will have achieved by this weekend."
On Tuesday night David Whitehouse - Clark's fellow administrator - said a failure to agree to certain clauses with players' advisers had blocked the deal.
However, Clark said: "We will vary certain contracts such that there will be trigger points at which they can move.
"I don't think that should be considered that any or all of the players are considering that they want to leave the club in the summer.
"It's just a safety mechanism from their point of view, in exchange for the very substantial amounts they're giving up, to give them some flexibility depending on what the new ownership structure looks like when the club comes out of administration.
"I can understand the players' concern, but I don't think the fans should assume that means a bunch of the players are going to go in the summer or, indeed, at any point in the future for little or no value."
Captain Steven Davis and Scotland internationals Whittaker and Naismith were locked in negotiations on Tuesday night when it emerged that seven or eight players had not yet agreed to the proposed cuts in salaries.
The BBC had learned that the club's biggest stars were being asked to take wage cuts of 75%, middle earners 50% and the lower paid members of the squad 25%.
Wingers Mervan Celik and Gregg Wylde this week had offers to leave the club accepted, while Australia midfielder Matt McKay arranged a move to South Korean club Busan I'Park earlier in the administration process.
Meanwhile, uefa events chief executive David Taylor says Rangers will have to meet the 31 March cut-off for securing a licence to take part in European competition next season.
Rangers' administrator has admitted there was "no realistic prospect" of the club meeting the deadline but hoped to appeal to the Scottish Football Association, which uses Uefa rules to determine whether licences are issued.
However, former SFA chief executive Taylor said: "They have to make the deadline. There will be no extensions.
"It's a great shame that such a major football club and a major Scottish institution is in such disarray at the moment.
"A club that has that massive level of support shouldn't be in the financial position that it's in just now."
By Alasdair Lamont and Clive Lindsay
BBC Scotland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17308715
No comments:
Post a Comment