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‘British football clubs need to be prudent’

ANDY Murray insists British football clubs need to be more prudent with their pounds and pennies in the aftermath of Scottish giants Rangers entering administration.

The financially-stricken Ibrox-based club were docked 10 points earlier this month following their appointment of Duff and Phelps as administrators, with the Glasgow outfit’s playing squad now facing likely redundancies in the very near future.

Rangers are not the only British side to put short-term success above sustainability though as former English Premier League teams Charlton Athletic, Leeds United and Portsmouth have all endured similar hardship over recent years.

It’s a sorry state of affairs for Hibernian fan Murray, who cites Arsenal as an example of a footballing institution that seeks to be competitive and frugal in equal measure.

“I was actually just talking about Arsenal’s situation in the car because everyone is saying that they don’t spend any money and Arsene Wenger was talking about it on Sunday as well,” the Australian Open semi-finalist, 24, said.

“There are far too many clubs that spend so much money that they don’t have just to try and win.

“Clubs should be run like a business. You cannot spend money that you don’t have because it has happened with a lot of clubs in the past. My fitness trainer, Matt Little, is a Charlton fan. Suddenly, when they had a little bit of success, they then tried to spend money, got relegated and the club struggles.

“Leeds were exactly the same. It’s happened to Portsmouth and now obviously with Rangers. It’s a shame because they’re huge clubs and they get massive crowds for every match and it’s only until a few weeks ago that the crowds have just stopped going because of it. I don’t really know how they’re going to recover from that.

“I was disappointed because a lot of my friends are Rangers fans and they were saying to me for years they’re really struggling financially and in a lot of debt and then it obviously just happened. “But, I think they’ve been struggling for quite a number of years beforehand.

“I just don’t understand how it happens so often in football nowadays? I understand it’s obviously really hard to run a football club and be successful, but people need to be a bit more sensible with the way they spend their money, including the banks!”

Murray will be making his first competitive appearance since his five-set defeat (3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 1-6, 5-7) to Novak Djokovic in Melbourne last month here at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships against German qualifier Michael Berrer on Tuesday.

He has very few regrets with the way he played that match in Australia however, in spite of letting a two-sets-to-one lead slip, adding: “I did everything very, very well. I would have liked to have had a better start to the fourth set, but that was the only thing I would have liked to have done better.

“You’ve always got to look for positives. It was a good tournament. It wasn’t like I had a really bad event. I played a lot of good tennis and I was playing so well in the semis as well, so you cannot be disappointed when a match comes down to one or two small details that can go either way.

“Last year, I got outplayed in the final and I was obviously very disappointed with that, but then – this year (in the semi) – that wasn’t the case at all. It was a very close match and, now, I’ve just got to move on from it.”

alex@khaleejtimes.com