Eye-watering cost of running SPFL club revealed as new owner warned over annual bill
RONNIE MacDONALD has warned Hamilton’s new owners they face a £2million annual bill just to keep the club going.
The Accies academy boss and former owner quit last week, along with directors Allan Maitland and Les Gray and CEO Colin McGowan.
The League One outfit have been taken over by Lanarkshire businessman Seref Zengin.
But MacDonald has laid bare what awaits the 53-year-old, who first joined the Accies board in 2017.
And he revealed in 20 years in charge, he and McGowan raised £20m to keep the club alive, in the face of mounting debts and fan apathy.
MacDonald said: “If you take away gate receipts and season ticket money, we had to find £2m every year.
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“It’s not our money. We’ve appealed to pals and business associates, done sponsorship deals, sold the likes of James McCarthy, Lewis Ferguson, James McArthur.
“If you’re in the Premiership and get a good cup draw, you could get £500,000. Lewis could get sold and you might get a sell-on payment.
“Last month we got a £50,000 add-on from the sale of Hakeem Odoffin from Rotherham because they stayed up. But our efforts are what have made up 80 per cent of the revenue.
“We’ve taken Accies from going bust and owing £5.4m to where they are now. We took all the financial risk, now Colin sold the club for £1. It’s his stadium, that’s it.
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“He’ll run the business, he’ll let it to the nursery, to Alcoholics Anonymous and all the charity groups, which are his passion.
“Colin is, in many ways, the hero of Accies’ story.”
MacDonald has revealed he decided to step away over four years ago.
The 73-year-old transformed Accies from a club on the verge of liquidation to one that reached the top of the Premiership, after a win at Celtic Park in October 2014.
But the abuse dished out to former boss Martin Canning by Hamilton fans, after a Scottish Cup loss at St Johnstone in 2019, convinced him his time was up.
MacDonald added: “Martin’s the loveliest guy in the world and we’re still good friends.
“But that day at Perth was the day I decided I was getting out of Hamilton.
“I was at the game with my partner Jill and driving back afterwards I said to her, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but that’s me — I’m out’. Hearing our own so-called supporters hurling abuse at Martin and his father was the final straw.
“I later sold my shares to Colin for a nominal sum.
“It’s taken me until now to finally get out, but it’s been coming for a while.
“Even when we were at the top of the Premiership, there wasn’t a core support.
“We played Aberdeen in a midweek game in 2014, won 3-0 and we had 1,400 fans in our main stand.
“But the night the kids played Midtjylland in the Youth Champions League, we sold every seat.”
MacDonald has become increasingly disillusioned as internal disharmony split the club off the park.
He revealed: “The first-team and the academy side fell out entirely. They weren’t even speaking to one another.
“If there was one thing Hamilton were known for in my time, it was a real spirit in the club. The team never gave up.
“I’d left but I went back last September to try to get that back.
“Our whole thing had always been bringing kids through to the first team, but that had all broken down.
“Allan tried hard last season to keep it together, but it was like herding cats, everyone pulling in different directions. John Rankin was the unity candidate. He got on well with everybody, and the board opted to make him manager.
“But they stopped playing kids in the first team and it became a shambles.
“Accies won the Challenge Cup and played great in the final. Six days later they went to Dundee and lost 7-0.
“It was almost impossible to get relegated from the Championship, but from the last 27 points, they got six.
“In the play-off, they only had to keep the ball out of the net for two minutes in the last game, and couldn’t do it.
“But at that time I had four offers for players in our Under-18 team that amounted to £800,000.
“Two of them, Gabe Forsyth and Josh McDonald, have just moved south. Ryan One and Chris McGinn are the others.
“Scouts from English clubs are at all our youth games and people were asking me about these four last season.
“Yet they weren’t viewed as good enough to play in a team that was sinking into League One.”
MacDonald admits he’s gloomy about what the future holds for the club he ran.
He added: “Colin sold the club to Seref for £1 and there’s talk of a Turkish consortium being involved. I wish them well.
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“Allan and Les Gray feel much the same way — they are both glad to be out. We did 20 years. That’s enough.”
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