Fans or customers? Just exactly how do Rangers view those supporters providing the club with its financial lifeblood is a question the Ibrox faithful are asking themselves more and more these days.
Only last week the punters currently trying to navigate their way through the savage cost-of-living crisis were informed they’d have to shell out a minimum of £150 to witness their team’s three games at home in the Champions League. And that’s in the supposedly cheap seats. After 12 years locked outside the European elite, there’s no wonder the Gers board are eager to milk this opportunity for all its worth ahead of their glamour clashes with Napoli, Liverpool and Ajax.
But perhaps they could have sweetened the deal by throwing the hard-up supporters - who have already had to fork out for season-tickets, MyGers memberships and endless drops of Castore gear - a deadline day dividend, something to convince the fans that the eye-watering ticket prices offered value for money.
Right now after Saturday’s brutal Old Firm dismantling, the fans will probably get more satisfaction out of forking out for their sky-high energy bills. And it’s not as if the club doesn’t have the spare cash lying around.
The profits from the sales of Nathan Patterson, Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo, combined with Rangers' European exploits this year and last, have filled the Ibrox coffers with a wad of notes that can’t be far off £100million.
Even with legacy debts accrued during the long refurbishment works required over the past decade, Gers should have had the financial clout to have given Gio van Bronckhorst at least one further fresh face to add to the seven he brought in over the summer.
That reluctance to reinvest, however, came back to bite with
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