RANGERS yesterday announced a profit of just over £3 million for the six months to December 2007, but have seen their debt rise to an undisclosed figure.

The Ibrox club's interim accounts do not detail their debt, but chairman Sir David Murray confirmed it has increased from the £16.5 million amount recorded in their most recent annual report last July as a result of investment in new players for this season.

Rangers' turnover for the six-month period increased by £10 million to £33 million as a consequence of their qualification for and participation in the group stage of the Champions League.

The interim accounts do not include the proceeds of Alan Hutton's transfer to Tottenham Hotspur last month in a deal which could ultimately earn Rangers £10 million, so the club will expect their year-on-year debt to have fallen when they publish their next set of annual figures. It stood at almost £74 million in 2004, before being dramatically reduced to less than £6 million by 2006 after a £53 million share rights issue that was underwritten by Murray. It rose again last year after Rangers failed to qualify for the 2006-07 Champions League.

Murray has promised Walter Smith the resources to strengthen the squad in the summer and paid a glowing tribute to the manager for reviving the club's fortunes after the ill-fated tenure of Paul Le Guen.

"It's a remarkable turnaround for the club in the last 12 months and all credit must go to the club management, Walter, the players and the supporters," Murray told rangers.co.uk. "I think that after the disappointing Paul Le Guen era, and it was obviously disappointing for him too, we have been able to regroup and rebuild the club in quite a short period of time.

"The catalyst was Walter. He has got the club back to basics. We went down a foreign route and it didn't work for anybody. That's not a criticism of Paul. We had a go and then we parted.

"We have Scottish identity in the team again and that was the route that Walter wanted to go down when we spoke about him coming back last January. We have spent £15.5million on players since Walter was appointed. The Alan Hutton money will not kick in until the next set of figures, so that makes our current situation all the more remarkable. There are still funds to invest. Walter had money to spend in January, but he said at the time that if he could not find someone who was an automatic pick then he was more than happy with the group.

"He was not prepared to spend money just for the sake of it. So there will be money available in the summer for him. I think it's quite obvious what we need to do. We want to go on and be successful with this group and then strengthen again. I think the judgment of Walter Smith in the last 12 months has been remarkable and we should back that judgment."

Murray believes Rangers can "remain profitable" if they qualify for the Champions League on a consistent basis and says the club have only dropped out of the Deloitte top 20 rich list of football clubs, in which Celtic were included last week, because of their deal with JJB Sports, which pays a guaranteed annual sum for the franchise of the club's retail wing.

"We are slightly disadvantaged in that chart because we don't have our retail turnover any more, having chosen to go down the JJB route," said Murray.

"We used to turn over £20million, but we now get a guaranteed net income and it is probably more than we would have had if we had kept the shops, because I notice that other clubs who are still running their own retail division are experiencing diminishing turnover."

Murray also confirmed plans to redevelop Ibrox and said he hopes to make an announcement in that regard "sooner rather than later". Rangers are understood to be looking at increasing the capacity of the stadium in conjunction with regeneration work being undertaken in the surrounding area.


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