ADMINISTRATORS should have axed 24 of its playing squad including two former Rangers captains saving £1.4m in salaries in four months after Rangers went into insolvency.
The hit list of players who would have been made compulsorily redundant that has now been revealed included former Rangers Scotland international Lee McCulloch, Bosnia and Herzegovina international Sasa Papac, Northern Ireland international David Healy, former US national team captain Carlos Bocanegra, defender Kirk Broadfoot, goalkeeper Neil Alexander and midfielder Mervan Çelik. The biggest earner on the list with an annual salary of £1.040m was Romanian centre back Dorin Goian.
Mr McCulloch and Mr Bocanegra are both former Rangers captains.
The expert analysis came from Gordon Christie for Rangers oldco liquidators BDO which is suing the former administrators of the business David Whitehouse and Paul Clark of Duff and Phelps for £56.8m claiming a seriously flawed strategy in raising money to reimburse thousands owed millions from the 2012 insolvency.
Mr Christie has argued that after the club business went into administration, 24 players could have been made redundant and another ten sold while over 70 non-playing staff could have gone.
He said the insolvent club would have saved £2.5m in salaries and bonuses on players alone.
It would have left a total squad across the entire club roster of 25 players.
The analysis was carried out to illustrate a different strategy to handling the club after it went into administration in February, 2012.
The Herald previously revealed that team manager Ally McCoist was on the the list of non-playing staff redundancies suggested along with club legend Sandy Jardine.
Analysis has revealed that wage waivers agreed by the administrators over 10 of the Rangers players including goalkeeper Allan McGregor, striker Steven Naismith, midfielder Steven Davis and defender Steven Whittaker saved the insolvent club just over £608,000.
Mr Christie said he did not accept that the wage waivers improved cash flow and did not maximise overall recovery for creditors.
He said that a redundancy programme would have been in the creditors interests.
"I would acknowledge that player redundancies and sales may not have been popular with the fans base, but... I would not see this as a critical consideration for the administrators," he said.
"While compulsory redundancies may have breached both contractual and regulatory issues, this is not different from any other insolvency or indeed other football insolvencies. As experienced administrators, they should have been able to manage this process to minimise any adverse implications..."
He said a decision to turn down a nearly £2m offer from Premier League side West Bromwich Albion for forward Steven Naismith was "irrational and not simply a matter of judgement".
"This is on the basis that achieving a successful sale would have had significant benefits in terms of generating cash for creditors..."
He added: "If you are cutting cutting costs and selling players simultaneously, I see that as quite an attractive way to try and move forward."
But former Spurs chief executive and vice chairman of Tottenham Hotspur David Buchler acting as an expert for Mr Whitehouse and Mr Clark said that any compulsory redundancies of players could force a cessation of trade.
The former Barnet FC chairman and qualified accountant said involuntary lay offs of players would be a breach of the football regulations leading to sanctions, including the possible forfeiture of membership of the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Premier League. He said: "There seems to be no consideraton by the joint-liquidators, or their expert, of the rules and regulations of the SPL/SFA relating to player contracts and their protection.
"Both the routes of seeking a reduction in wages or pursuing redundancies and transfers were open to the joint-administrators and they chose the former. In my view, that was reasonable.
"The transfer route, in my opinion, was more likely to fail than succeed given the closed transfer window. The wage waivers were a more reliable way to reduce the company's outgoings."
He added: "Redundancy as a policy, causes huge problems in the dressing room, if it's not dealt with delicately and if it's not combined with something that gives the players some sort of comfort. Because the players themselves in the dressing room have have real power and they have to be dealt with very carefully and very considerately."
The action comes nine years after the Rangers business fell into administration and then liquidation leaving thousands of unsecured creditors out of pocket, including more than 6000 loyal fans who bought £7.7m worth of debenture seats at Ibrox.
Creditors also ranged from corporate giants such as Coca-Cola to a picture framer in Bearsden and a lady called Susan Thomson who ran a face-painting business and was owed £40.
The 24 players listed on Mr Christie's hit list for redundancy, complete with their annual salary were as follows:
Neil Alexander (£520,000), Kirk Broadfoot (442,000), Mervan Çelik (£442,000), Adam Hunter (£20,800), Anthony Merenghi (£15,600), Robbie Crawford (£18,200), Chris Hegarty (£20,800), Josh Robinson (13,000), Tom Skogsrud (£20,800), Kim Skogsrud (£20,800), Jack Werndly (£20,800), Liam Kelly (£13,000), Barrie McKay (13,000), Sasa Papac (£936,000), Dorin Goian (£1,040,000), Kyle Bartley (£624,996), Lee McCulloch (£832,000), Carlos Bocanegra (£780,000), Alejandro Bedoya (£390,000), Juan Manuel Ortiz (£416,000), Jamie Ness (£208,000), Ross Perry (£91,000), David Healy (£260,000), A Smith (£18,200).
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