East End Park

By Graham Barnstaple
March 1 2012

As Rangers get closer to announcing redundancies we have also heard Dunfermline have failed to pay their players all of their wages.

Dunfermlineannounced their financial results yesterday and these should a reduction in the loss on trading to just over £430000, down from about £1 million the year before. They still have a debt in the region of £9m to deal with at the same time.

The Pars took action earlier in the season to reduce costs when they decided to close their North Stand on match days, meaning the games are played with one side of the ground empty.

The news then broke later yesterday they have only played their players and staff 60% of their wages for February, with a plan to pay the balance on Monday. This must be on the assumption of some money coming in from Saturday’s game with Motherwell, who should take about 1000 toEast EndParkthemselves.

The blame for their position is being placed on the situation at Rangers, with the Pars owed £85000 from ticket sales from a game on 11^th February.

While this is probably true, there is no doubt they have not attracted the number of people toEast EndParkthey thought they would this season after promotion to the SPL. This appears to have back fired on them and over optimistic given there are plenty of models to base themselves on, including Motherwell and St. Mirren who are debt free in today’s tough environment.

You have to fear when relegation becomes a certainty for the Pars you wonder how deep they will be forced to cut their squad and wages for the First Division. This could see them out of the top flight for some time.

Talking of Rangers there was an expectation of redundancies being announced today, but the administrators have said it will be tomorrow at the earliest before any announcement is made.

There seems to have been a lot of procrastination with this decision, which either means the number of people to go is higher than expected, or some of the staff are not present at the moment down to International Duty.

What does all this mean to the SPL as a body, with one club in administration, one with a history of not paying players and now another not paying the full wage. Will they need to re-consider some of their statutes and business models.