THE financial crisis that Rangers have been plunged into is just the latest remake of the tired old story of a football club that has spent beyond its means for too long with no realistic expectation of generating revenues that exceed its outgoings.

But there are two bewildering elements to Rangers’ difficulties.

The first is that just about every football fan knows the likely limits of the club’s revenue potential – it will challenge for every trophy in Scotland, attract large home gates to Ibrox, but fall short of being more than a makeweight in the Champions League.

There are no surprises on that front.

The second element is that the owner, Craig Whyte, has acknowledged that he hasn’t approached this in his usual manner.

Yet Mr Whyte, when he is not running Rangers, has a venture capital business which specialises in distressed assets.

Earlier this week he said: “Frankly, the case for administration in pure financial terms was compelling but I was acutely aware that such a great institution as Rangers could not be viewed exclusively in financial and business terms.

“As I have said before, Rangers costs approximately £45m per year to operate and commands around £35m in revenue. From the outset I have made it clear that I do not think it is in the best interests of Rangers to throw good money after bad.”

Rangers’ difficulties are compounded by a potential tax liability of up to £75m, which relates to historic payments to players which the club thought did not incur tax, but HM Revenue & Customs believes it should have.

A tribunal is to decide who is right, although Rangers would not be able to afford to pay such a bill.

But the tax issue aside, the fundamentals remain inexcusably bad.

It defies understanding why Rangers have felt compelled to spend £10m more every year than they are able to generate.

This is brought into sharp focus when looking at the turnover of the other Scottish Premier League clubs who, Celtic apart, don’t turn over £10m, with most operating around the £5m mark.

Rangers did take steps to reduce its wage bill, but they were only baby steps.

From 2009 to 2010, the last season which there are published figures for the Scottish Premier League, they shaved off £2m from a £30m wage bill.

The third-highest spenders, Hearts, paid its players £9m.

The question is, in terms of the SPL, would a squad earning £20m be of a noticeably inferior quality compared with a squad earning £30m?

Scottish football would continue to be a duopoly, regularly coming down to the results of Glasgow derbies.

The football industry is a lot like the housing market.

Too many people believed that there was an inexorable upwards trend which would cover excessive spending.

But when that trend reached its turning point and started declining, there was nowhere left to go.