Spending like this will always grab the headlines. The voices of concerned supporters will, as ever, be restricted to websites, fanzines and the pubs; however, I'm sure there are some City fans out there worried for the future of their club with this kind of unsustainable spending by a man whose interest extends only so far as seeing the club as a play thing. A lot of the armchair generation who see football akin to WWE-style entertainment will no doubt be lapping up the headlines of ridiculous transfer fees and wages.
It does make you wonder what those at City are aiming for. If they plan to break the English Premier League's top four, and stay there, is this the correct way to go about it? Will it work in the long term and have them regularly competing with their local rivals and Chelsea for the title? Or are they simply digging themselves in to crippling debt? Parallels can be drawn with problems faced by Scottish clubs in recent times.
Cast your mind back to the start of the SPL and Dick Advocaat's time in charge. Leaving aside our well-documented and much-criticised spending, Dundee had a team with the likes of Sara, Caniggia, Caballero, Nemsadze, Artero - players on high wages (£1m a year in the case of Canigga) at a level simply unsustainable for the club. You have to ask: what were Dundee aiming for? They weren't going to win the league, draw in crowds of 50,000 or have success in Europe and the cash that brings. So what was the plan in all of this? As a result of the entertaining but expensive side, the Taysiders were plunged in to over £20m of debt; a terrifying amount for a club of their size.
Being stuck in the SPL, the general consensus amongst Rangers fans seems to be that we can't compete at the level we would like without a Russian/Saudi/American billionaire buying the club and making it his personal toy. However, using the examples of City and Dundee, if we did have an owner happy to part with his hard-earned cash and pay players £50,000+ per week, what would we be aiming for? It wouldn't be enough to win the Champions League and we don't have to spend at this level to win the SPL, so what would the outcome be? More debt and the club drifting yet further away from the fans. Is this what we really want?
A sustainable and long-term plan must be to do things within our means but to do them properly; the latter part being the key point. This is unlikely to win us the Champions League against clubs able to put themselves £750m in debt to buy their way to the European last four or compete with the stunning success of the current Barcelona side, but there is certainly a thrill in feeling that your club is well run, successful and doing it the right way. Seeing a long-term plan for youth development actually working (something that has never happened at Ibrox in my lifetime) or knowing we have a scouting system and genuine transfer policy in place has massive benefits at any level in football. And when we know we can't spend big, it is simply the only way forward if we want to improve things at Ibrox.
Our fans must not accept the credit crunch as an excuse for mediocrity. The will and desire to better yourself costs nothing and while we are all delighted with the double win, we cannot allow people to pretend the club is performing at its peak or that we can rest easy because everything is perfect. We can see examples of clubs throughout Europe that consistently punch above their weight, working on a budget and within their means, while also being successful. The only difference between them and any other club is that they have people in charge with a plan and with the ambition to make it work.
As a support we have to ask if David Murray and Martin Bain have this kind of plan in place for Rangers. The danger is that this is as good as it gets - stumbling from one summer to the next, being terrified of every transfer window and not seeing improvement at Ibrox on and off the field. Are they looking at other clubs to take successful ideas and implement them down Edmiston Drive? It is hugely worrying yet not all that unrealistic to think that they believe this is as good as Rangers can be. If other clubs can make it work then all that's stopping the Gers doing the same is excuse after excuse to hide a lack of ambition.
Our club became famous because of young lads that wouldn't accept second best. They didn't make excuses. This attitude echoed through the club down the years and kept Rangers at the top for much of our history. While our financial muscle is eclipsed by other clubs, if those in charge can't improve Rangers then they should have no place at Ibrox.