Rangers wage bill HIGHER than Celtic as John Bennett makes 'serial winners' vow following financial results

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Rangers have revealed their wage bill is higher than Celtic’s as chairman John Bennett vowed to make the club sustainable off the park and “serial winners” on it. Record Sport understands the Ibrox giants hope to appoint a sporting director by the end of the month with Bennett looking to ramp up the club’s player trading model to boost their growth.

It comes as the latest financial report from Ibrox showed a net loss of £4.1m with revenue dropping from £86.8m to £83.3m while costs shot up from £97m last year to £108m this time around.That included staff costs of £64m in comparison to Celtic’s £61m.An operating profit of £252,000 was down £5.5m from the previous year and comes after a season in which Rangers were back in the Champions League group stage but failed to lift any silverware.

It also led to the sacking of Gio van Bronckhorst 12 months ago. Bennett wants to see consistent success in the transfer market.And to that end, the club plan to have a new sporting director in place to work with manager Philippe Clement in the next fortnight.

The previous incumbent Ross Wilson left for Nottingham Forest in April leaving sacked Michael Beale to head up the summer recruitment drive alone.But while investing heavily on players such as Danilo, Sam Lammers, Cyriel Dessers and Jose Cifuentes, Rangers crashed out of the Champions League at the play-off stage and made a slow start to the Premiership campaign leading to Beale’s axing last month.And in his chairman’s statement Bennett said: “I have talked previously of the four components of financial sustainability: season ticket sales, commercial revenue, European football and player trading.“While the first of these components will never be taken for granted, it is the fourth