Rangers must engage with player sales if they miss out on their year's Champions League jackpot to keep pace with Celtic, a football finance expert has warned.
A whopping transfer spend in the summer of 2020 blew their rivals out of the water on the park but when it comes to generating income from transfer fees those at Parkhead are miles clear.
Popular analyst the Swiss Ramble has given annual Ibrox accounts the treatment - and uncovered a £100m gap in player sales income between the two Glasgow clubs.
A £24m loss is a worry especially if Gio van Bronckhorst's men fail to deliver a second Premiership title in a row and the likely subsequent Champions League group stage slot.
They have highlighted that the club have made only £9m from player sales since 2012 — compared to a whopping £112m in the same period.
That includes just £1.7m in 2020, compared to £9.4m across the city.
Despite the being in the red in this year's accounts, managing director Stewart Robertson remains adamant player sales aren't required this January with the winner takes all jackpot at the end of this campaign.
He told shareholders: "We said in the financial report that we are looking to record a positive profit and that is looking very probable rather than possible and that is without a player sale.
"I know there is a bit of chat in the press that we need to sell a player – we don’t need to sell a player."
However he's also long called for the development of a "player trading model" - first touched upon at the 2020 AGM and again this year.
Robertson said: "What we need to do is get ourselves to a normalised position with a player trading model which is selling the right player, at the right time, at the right value for Rangers and that is something that again, we are very close to doing.
"We are getting closer to financial sustainability, we can’t keep expecting investors to shore up the club."
Speaking at Gio van Bronckhorst's unveiling last month, Wilson said: "There is no mandate to the manager that we have to sell players. We have been really, really clear as a club in our communication that we see player trading as something that has to be normal for this club - as it is for nearly ever club in world football.
"We've not been strong in that in the past, that's been clear to see but the investors have continued to back this club all the time.
"We've rejected, as everybody knows, some significant offers for some of our players in the last two windows and we'll do so again unless they are the right offers for the right players at the right time."
