Charity begins at home: Rangers Exploiting Remembrance for their latest 'Grift'

Rangers’ latest poppy shirt campaign sparks outrage as critics accuse the club of exploiting remembrance for profit, with just a fraction of proceeds reaching Poppy Scotland.

Rangers have announced the release of a limited edition Rangers home top emblazoned with Poppy Scotland’s emblem ahead of Remembrance Day next month, in a bid to raise funds for the charity.

In what should have been seen as a charitable cause that all Rangers fans could get behind, it was revealed by the Ibrox club that only 10% of sales will go to the charity with the remaining 90% split between Castore-owned Umbro and Rangers. Around £14.25 in taxes comes out of the sale with fans paying a further £5.50 [on top of the £80] in shipping once it is released.

While some Rangers fans have celebrated the release of the limited edition top, many other Rangers fans have hit out at the club over just 8% being donated to charity, seeing it as another ‘grift’ by the club’s hierarchy, looking to bleed the fans for more money at a time when the club is managerless and sitting 8th in the league with the relegation zone closer than the top of the table.

Rangers fan, AndythephotoDr, posted on Follow Follow: “The money goes to a good cause I get but this feels like a grift and. Somethings you just don’t profiteer off of. A better thing perhaps would be some sort of iron on badge that the club sell for say £10 iron it on at the club show to existing top or a shop bought top for free and all the money for the poppy goes to the charity.”

MCFC-Bear added: “I’d rather just donate the 10% to Poppy Scotland than fork out for yet another astronomically priced shirt.”

While EIAFF said: “Must be struggling for sales right enough and are keen to cash in on the support again.”

And Derek1960 simply put: “Just 10% only £8?”

Deja Vu down Govania Way

It’s not the first time that a club out of Ibrox has faced outrage over profiteering from charity, in 2013 the charities watchdog criticised trustees of the Rangers Charity Foundation after cash raised at a charity fundraising game between Rangers Legends and AC Milan Glorie went to football club instead.

Doubts over the game going ahead were raised, after Rangers 1872 went into administration in February 2012, charity trustees gave the club control of match income - a decision which saw the charity lose out on £191,430 - with this profit going to the club itself.

The Foundation, controlled by three trustees all employed by Rangers FC, were due to receive 60% of the net profit from the game plus a management fee of £25,000. However, after the trustees signed over the income to the financially stricken club, the charity only received 10% [they seem to love that 10%!] - resulting in only £38,286 being donated to charity - plus the management fee going to RCF.

The watchdog issued a statement saying the decision making of the trustees ‘constituted misconduct’ but the regulator surprisingly refused to take action against any of the trustees.

Leading by Example

At the same time as Rangers were unveiling their ‘charity fundraising’ football top, across the city, Celtic revealed that they had donated £100,000 to the UN World Football Programme intended to support emergency assistance in Gaza, with a further £100,000 donated to its Paradise Pit Stop initiative as they invest in existing community partners to provide food for people who cannot make it to Celtic Park - this is on top of the £300,000 per year that the Celtic Foundation invests in opening Celtic Park to feed people four times per week.

In the coming weeks, Celtic will also announce their annual £10,000 donation to Poppy Scotland.

It’s in stark contrast to their city rivals, Rangers, who have made a pledge to donate a minimum of £5000 to Poppy Scotland through the sale of the jerseys [must sell 625 jerseys to hit that amount or Rangers will need to dip into their own pockets]. To go along with over £261,000 already donated to Armed Forces and Veterans charities to date - amounting to just over a fiver per fan at a capacity Ibrox stadium - they truly are the Quintessential British club.

It’ll be interesting to see how much money the club actually raises through this latest fundraiser, but ultimately they are relying on the supporters to once again dip into their pockets to fund a donation that the club should be doing out of the money provided by the fans already this season through season ticket and merchandise sales. Or is Russell Martin’s pay-off hitting them hard financially?