Bleak picture for SPL

Scottish football has been living outwith its means

The latest report into the financial state of football clubs in the Scottish Premier League continues to paint a bleak future.

The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report highlighted how the 2000/01 season led to a record loss of £48m for the 12 clubs.

It revealed how St Mirren was the only club to make a profit before tax that season, a campaign which saw them relegated to the first division.

Last season, St Johnstone, who were also relegated, were the only team to operate in the black.

The study also showed how a third of the clubs - Dundee, Dunfermline Athletic, Hearts and Motherwell - had a statement of "fundamental uncertainty" in their audits.

The clubs' combined net debt rose from £55m to £132m, as a result of falling attendance as well as increasing wage costs record transfer fees, notably Tore Andre Flo's £12m signing for Rangers.

The Norwegian striker was recently moved on to Sunderland for approximately half that fee.

Rangers announce record losses

The combined wage bill for the Bank of Scotland SPL rose from £89m to £101m.

Rangers reduced its losses from £25m to £17m but their net debt rose to £52m.

Glasgow rivals Celtic, winners of the league title and both cups that year, increased turnover by almost 10% - but saw its losses rise £5m to £11m.

David Glen, the report's author, said: "Since the season 1995/96 - the last time the Premier League made a combined profit - losses have risen to £48m and the total loss incurred during that period amounts to a staggering £137m.

"The answer is simple - wage costs.

"During that same period wage costs in the SPL have more than trebled from £30m to over £101m, whilst for a number of clubs the wage bill now exceeds their total income."

Last season saw Motherwell go into receivership and shed the bulk of their playing staff and almost every club has tightened their belts over the summer.

A lucrative television deal with BSkyB was lost, with the BBC stepping in to provide coverage at a much reduced rate.

Rangers chairman John McClelland insists his club have moved into a new prudent period.

"We have not only invested heavily in a team but in youth development.

"This was done in a market environment when the value of players and media deals was declining.

"We were investing for the current and the future against that backcloth of a decline in money coming in."