Manager was doomed at Ibrox as soon as Sebo signed his name on the dotted line
In the second instalment of a four-part book serialisation, Graham Spiers traces the way that Rangers were manipulated by Austria Vienna over a £1.8 million transfer deal
Two days after arriving in Vienna in the spring of 2007, I sat around the desk of Markus Kraetschmer, the financial director of Austria Vienna. “I made a 300 per cent profit for this club on the sale of Filip Sebo to Rangers,†Kraetschmer told me chirpily as he breezed through the details of an episode which proved to be a fatal factor in Paul Le Guen’s demise at Rangers.
Kraetschmer, aged 36, holds a degree in economics and business administration from the University of Vienna. To use the vernacular, he is said to have royally shafted Rangers over the transfer of Filip Sebo, and been slapped on the back in every bar in Vienna over the deal.
Le Guen’s reign at Rangers was doomed from the moment his fingers reached out and touched Austria Vienna. The Frenchman never lived down his fascination with players from this club, nor the fact that the three he signed – Sebo, Libor Sionko and Sasa Papac – were all branded failures. Indeed, you needed only to mention Sebo’s name to Le Guen, I later discovered, to make his body language visibly stiffen.
Even on paper Sionko was a strange case: a 29-year-old Czech Republic midfield player who had represented a series of unremarkable clubs – Sparta Prague, Banik Ostrava, Grazer AK – and whose international haul of 13 caps looked good but not exactly gluttonous for a player of his age. When Sionko was 26, by which point you might have thought he would be starting to make a name for himself, he was transferred from Sparta Prague to humble Grazer AK for all of £200,000. Two years on in Vienna the Austria Vienna fans loved him, yet the truth was that hardly anyone else had heard of him.
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Significantly, though, in 2006 Sionko found himself playing for a club that could no longer afford to keep him. He also had an agent in Juergen Werner – of the Stars and Friends sports management group, a very influential agency in Austria – who was in contact with Le Guen. With the Sionko deal done between Austria Vienna and Rangers, Werner went back to Le Guen and told him, “I can get you more players from this club if you need them.†Le Guen at that time was hungry for new players and so a series of talks and transactions commenced between Vienna and Glasgow – via Werner’s various offices in Austria – which Le Guen and Rangers would later regret.
Kraetschmer had worked within an annual budget of €30 million (about £20 million) for Austria Vienna. In June 2006, however, following club owner Frank Stronach’s decision to rethink his investment, that budget was reduced to around €20 million, with further cuts expected over the following two seasons to around €15 million - in other words, exactly half of what Austria Vienna’s budget had been just four years earlier. In short, Kraetschmer needed to cut his club’s overheads and, in football, that meant players being sold.
The Sebo saga involving Austria Vienna and Rangers rankles around Ibrox to this day but remains in Kraetschmer’s mind as one of his finest bits of business. “How many goals did Sebo score for Austria Vienna the year before he joined Rangers?†I asked Kraetschmer. “Four, I think,†he replied. “Hold on . . . maybe five.†Perversely, given the sum Rangers would pay for him 12 months down the line, Sebo would actually have a difficult first season – his only season, as it transpired - in Austria.
Peter Stoger, the AV sporting director, felt Sebo was raw and somewhat impulsive, and regularly restricted him to the bench until well into the latter part of season 2005-06. Yet having bought Sionko, and knowing Austria Vienna’s financial situation, Rangers began relaying the news to Vienna that they would also be wanting a striker. The more they inquired, the more they wanted Sebo, but there was a problem.
Under Kraetschmer’s influence, Austria Vienna had just signed a new strip deal with Nike, and Sebo – lantern-chin, barrel-chest and all – had been chosen as the player to lead the marketing campaign. Thus, during the summer months of 2006, the distinctive Desperate Dan figure of the Slovakia striker began to appear in brochures and on posters all over Vienna advertising the club’s latest strip. So although his club was pushing him to reduce his budget, Kraetschmer was in the happy position of being able to use the Nike deal to boost Sebo’s value.
The weeks which ensued over the summer of 2006 led to one of Kraetschmer’s most satisfying pieces of business. Rangers came looking for Sebo, and Kraetschmer said “noâ€. Martin Bain, Rangers’ chief executive, came knocking once more for the striker, and Kraetschmer again said “noâ€. With Le Guen insistent that he wanted a new striker, the price for Sebo duly began to climb, from £1 million to £1.2 million to £1.4 million.
For a third time, Rangers came back in for the striker, and for a third time Kraetschmer – still under pressure to reduce costs but using the Nike deal as his bargaining tool – said “noâ€. Two weeks then elapsed when there were no talks between the clubs, until Rangers came back once more on August 2 and finally landed Sebo for a sum of £1.8 million. Austria Vienna had bought Sebo from Artmedia Bratislava for £400,000 12 months earlier.
“Let me put it this way: it was a very satisfying economic deal for me,†Kraetschmer told me. “I knew that so long as we used Sebo in the Nike deal, I could say we needed to keep Sebo in Vienna. However, once the price became so good . . .†He didn’t need to finish his sentence.
Kraetschmer then added: “Going to Rangers happened too early for Sebo, and I knew it.†Then, not quite going so far as to admit to swindling, Kraetschmer added, “Obviously, I did the best deal I could for my club.â€
–– Paul Le Guen, Enigma: Trauma and Turmoil inside Rangers by Graham Spiers is published on August 2.
timesonline.co.uk
hier geht es sowohl auch um pro und kontra orf - auch wenn das deinen horizont übersteigen dürfte - aber du bestimmst nicht die grenzen des allgemeinen interesses oder warums hier geht oder nicht - falls du das nicht akzeptierst ist das dein problem - hat aber im weitesten mit grenzdebil zu tun ...
