We spend an inordinate amount of time on this blog arguing about what the re-emergent Rangers should be called. It is a rather circular debate with no way of finding any consensus. The dispute between Rangers (“The Rangerists”) or The Rangers or Sevco (“The Sevconians”) and its claim to be the club that was formed in the 19th century is spurious. Whichever way you look at it, the continuity of the “brand” is undeniable and as long those who wish to keep buying that package are satisfied that the wrapping is authentic – where’s the harm?
The red herring in the argument is that “history” is important. To the average football fan, it is nothing of the kind. As a Celtic fan myself, and a bit of a student of the history of the club, I am constantly dismayed by the Thousand Yard Stare I get from your average Celtic fan who is confronted with the names of people who contributed significantly to the club’s identity. Key figures like Sandy McMahon, Jimmy Delaney, Jimmy McGrory and (God help us) John Thomson rarely elicit recognition.
Modern football fans who live in the instant gratification society of the the WWW and mobile communications may pay lip service to their clubs’ history, but that’s not what gives the modern football fan wears as his badge of honour. That is a commodity often erroneously confused with history – the bragging rights associated with the trophy haul.
The ability to claim that “we have more titles than you” is far more valuable to a supporter than which 19th century attacking centre-back won the Scottish Cup with a last minute header; and the value of said cup wins is heavily weighted in favour of the most recent (save for the honourable exception of the European successes).
The maintenance of that illusion of superiority is crucial if Rangers fans are to believe that their club is still Rangers. Perhaps in time they may even come to fully believe it themselves, but the cataract of column inches devoted to propagating that myth, both from the MSM and from information outlets controlled by Charles Green’s organisation, betrays a lack of total belief by the chief Bear-existentialists. Protesting too much may not be subtle, but that never put off your average fitba’ man either.
The upshot though is this. There is a belief – or at least a hope – amongst Rangerists that the continuity argument holds. They will call the new club Rangers. Fans of other clubs who make up the vast majority of the Sevconian tendency, believe nothing of the kind. They will call it something else.
Many will remind Rangerists that the old club died, and this is factually correct (or at least will be very soon). Rangerists will counter that the Rangers ethos lives on at Ibrox, and despite the worrying overtones (for some) contained in that statement, that is also factually correct.
Rangerists will also point out, as Rangers fans on this blog already have, that the SPL bent over backwards to assist the continuity of the club in order to minimise the financial consequences for Scottish football, and that the SFL too, have agreed that they are the same club.
Why? Simply because Scottish Football thinks it needs to help perpetrate they illusion of continuity to avoid the loss of thousands of paying customers to the game altogether.
So round one has gone to the Rangerists, with the Sevconians pretty much taking an eight-count.
So is the name thing important? I don’t think it is of critical importance. The name in itself doesn’t matter, but to merely agree that everything is as before is to join forces with the MSM, SFA & SPL who have sought to give RFC and their tax theft a pass.
Whatever happens in the future though, the illusion hasn’t worked completely. The Sevconians’ wish to call the new club by a different name was for the purpose of making it synonymous with tax evasion, however the name Rangers now evokes exactly that response. There is now a discernible pause when people mention Rangers. A pause that reflects on the dis-service they did to the country, and to the game of football in Scotland.
Which brings us to the really important point. Throughout this saga rules have been bent. Conflicted individuals, alleged to have been involved in the tax and registration scam and its subsequent cover-up, have remained in positions of authority and power, despite being under a cloud throughout. The media have been complicit, except in rare cases, in allowing the wrong-doing to go unquestioned, actively campaigning for rules not to be applied.
What we have been saying all along is this. Please play the game by the rules, and do not manufacture special cases for the financially powerful.
Call Rangers whatever you wish, but deal with their transgressions appropriately in the spirit of sporting fairness, and within the framework of the existing rules. That is the least – and most – we expect. We don’t ask for much. Just give us back some pride in our sport .
Parson St. Bhoy says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 20:41
I didnt realise they read to the goat as well!!
paulasatim
Thanks for the effort with the post on the FF opinion. Much appreciated and some what surprising.
ismellafix
You really shouldn’t have waited so long to post.
There have been plenty of rumours regarding the assets being sold, your suggestion that they were never transferred and Sevco Scotland were now paying rent might just explain the rumours.
Confirmation of this, may just kill the share issue.
Sorry to say it guys, yes they are wholly relevant, but the FIFA Minimum requirements have been spoken about by some on here for a good few months (see below and example from May on RTC).
It should also be noted that they relate to 2008 onwards. Therefore, like the LNS commission, work would need to be done to clarify what the FIFA rules were in previous years to see if Rangers were guilty over the whole time priod or only from 2008 onwards when this guidance came into force.
WOTTPI says:
22/05/2012 at 7:23 pm
Private Land says:
22/05/2012 at 7:07 pm
The FIFA minimum requirements ask that the tax implications and who is responsible for what is detailed. If the Rangers player contracts filed with the SPL/SFA included the EBT’s and also outlined the tax position as believed at the time via the advice given to MIH then they can agrue that for ‘footballing purposes’ they were complying with the rules. Therefore no 3-0 reversals or getting thrown out of the cups.
I have a feeling from the information we know that the EBT’s are not sufficiently detailed on the papers submitted to the SPL/SFA to meet the requirements of both ‘football’ and HMRC but until I see someone turning the cell door key I am still wary that there will be some get out for them!!!!!!!
paulsatim says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 21:17
I didnt realise they read to the goat as well!!
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
And harmony.
Three Billy Goats Gruff is his favourite story. Probably on account of the trolls. Evening Jack.
allyjambo says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 10:59
23 0 Rate This
I’ve noticed, with some disappointment, an argument going on regarding the Mark Guidi comment on Radio Clyde. I’ve no wish to enter the argument but feel compelled to defend Observer, though not to say anyone else is wrong.
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Thanks allyj!
Look, ‘Guidigate’ is hardly on a level with Barcabhoy’s Nuclear Option!
It is actually now with the regulator Ofcom & I hold no great hopes from them one way or another – having once had a complaint against a newspaper upheld by the PCC I was amazed that the case took more than a year & even then the ‘redress’ was a one line apology on page 2.
I also feel that there has been an overreaction to the fact I’ve made a citizen’s complaint about this: it’s one of the reasons that, like Brenda, I’ve cut my contributions to this excellent site (life is too short for the grief)
HOWEVER, for what ’tis worth here is the truth of where this (perhaps trivial) matter is currently at.
The head of Radio Clyde has accepted my assertion of what Mark Guidi said, that (if they strip Rangers titles) “I hope it’ll kick off” and of what Jim Delahunt said” “Civil war isn’t it?” It is clear from the correspondence that neither Guidi nor Delahunt has protested to their boss that this is not what they said.
Their boss Graham Bryce has defended them, not on the basis that they never said any of this, but that by “I hope it’ll kick off” & “Civil war, isn’t it?” the two presenters were predicting entirely peaceful responses from Rangers fans, such as “written signatories on a petition, letters to MPs and so on and so forth.”
Which is garbage; but as I say I don’t expect Ofcom to actually punish them for their casual incitement.
The original 30 second clip which I recorded on the day after the broadcast can be heard here:
http://www.btinternet.com/~k.miller18/ssb18th.mp3
Make yr own mind up on what was said – as the head of Radio Clyde has!
Observer says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 21:48
Don’t always agree with you, but nonetheless, your points often make me stop and think. All points of view, even ole iron pyrites need to be heard.
Carfins Finest. (@edunne58) says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 13:57
paulmac2 says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 13:39
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angus1983 says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 13:15
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I’m sure there are supporters at every club that if you offered them a Jobbie on a stick they’d buy it..
However I’m not sure how many times you can offer a jobbie on a stick to the supporters at SEVCO before it is considered as taking liberties?
————-=====———-======
Yes but this time the trfc fans will need to ask ‘Are we being offered shares in the Jobbie or the actual stick?’
=========================================================================
Either way, it looks like a bum deal.
=========================================================
TRFC fans, are being asked to buy into the jobbie or the stick share issue. they know not, what they will be investing in , it could be one or the other or perhaps both ! if they are lucky.
The whole deal stinks, a bit like what would be on the stick.
“Chuckie” aka Paul McKenna will take the money, click his fingers, everyone who bought into the deal of the trickster will awaken to find they dont even have a jobbie on a stick…….drum roll please……………”what do we have to show for our hard earned cash ” NOTHING thats what sweet fanny adams, nada, zilch. add appropriately lol.
fools and thier money are easily parted, Chuckie, trying his heart out promoting the ” global brand” that is trfc,oldco, newco,deadco, sebco….. and the pie muncher keeps handing him a jobbie on a stick to sell……… oh how I laughed (and stil am)
PS: we all know that the MSM in Glasgow read this blog – along with RangersMedia, KDS etc – it’s where they get a heads up on a fair few of their stories (I noticed that quotes from here were on both Sat & Sunday’s Off The Ball, for example!!)
It’s near three weeks since I and others have posted on here the sound clip from Superscoreboard & our interpretation of what Mark Guidi said. Mark Guidi will be well aware of what has been posted on here.
And Mark Guidi’s boss has my email address.
Now… how come Mark’s boss – on Mark’s behalf – hasn’t emailed me with the usual “cease and desist” or at least a friendly “hey, Observer, you’ve actually got what he said wrong! What Mark says he actually came out with was XXXXXXXXXXXXX”.
Use yr lugholes & then use yr loaf!
scapaflow14 says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:06
1 0 Rate This
Observer says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 21:48
Don’t always agree with you, but nonetheless, your points often make me stop and think. All points of view, even ole iron pyrites need to be heard
————————-
Ta, scapa!
I suspect TSFM thinks I’m a bit of a pain/conspiracy theorist but the fact s/he let’s me stay on here is to the credit of the site.
Of course it’s not just Clyde that likes to delete the past. Remember the claim that the bold Craig had paid to have his internet history deleted.
Corrupt to the core. A pox on all their houses.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/08/grant-shapps-how-to-corp-michael-green
Parson St. Bhoy says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 20:41
scapaflow14 says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 20:19
Interesting doc, but its not new, I find it hard to believe that the World’s Greatest Football Administrator was unaware of its provisions……
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
The goat ate it before he had a chance to read it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’ll bet that’s not the first time the “Worlds Greatest Football Administrator” and a goat have been associated in a tinternet post……
Ok, I’ll retire again……
Absolute dynamite from Bampot Tommy, asking Ogilvie the questions that our MSM should have been asking. Brilliant.
(Ogilvie is at 1 hr and 4 mins. Radio Clyde also gets pelters.)
http://glasgowradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/internet-bampot-chats-with-sfa-president.html
Observer says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:14
More power to your elbow.
Take your complaint to Ofcom (as Mr Bryce advises and does not appear to fear) but to be frank I think you will get short shrift.
Therefore can we just leave this issue until you get some feedback from Ofcom.
ismellafix says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 17:20
Very good post and no wonder you smell a fix 😉
The idea intrigues me, simple and only requires the bears to buy enough shares and the scam’s worked. On the face of it, unless BDO find something wrong with the administration and sale, it appears perfectly legal, and would explain why there was the need for 2 companies. As both companies are private, no one outside the ‘consortium’ has justification to see either company’s books and who knows just how much info they need to give for their private sale of shares? Even if ownership of Ibrox has to be declared before the share issue, whose to say they won’t just tell the bears, ‘pay up or lose Ibrox’? If what you say is a reality then Sevco 5088 own Ibrox and MP, value, say at worst, £4m, and have received £4m in rent and still getting £1m per month. They’ve already made a nice return on the supposed £5.5m they put up. At a worst case scenario they can hold on, taking £1m monthly rent, having sold their best players (the Templeton injury must have hit them hard) in January which rakes in, let’s say £3m, continue paying rent until all cash has gone, then go back into administration. For Sevco, though, a best case scenario would see the bears stump up around £20m and RFC buy Ibrox and MP (though maybe just Ibrox) for some inflated price and Green’s buddies are off into the sunset while Rangers newco exist on a shoestring.
Of course, I don’t know if this is a realistic plan, there’s bound to be plenty of things I haven’t thought of, but remember, the money men are pretty much all foreigners and don’t care about right and wrong, or Rangers, and Green probably finds the idea of spending the rest of his life on some sun-kissed island very attractive. Taking my extremely rough figures, they’d clear around £14m worst case, showing a profit of £8.5m which would have been enhanced had they been able to sell the players they’d tried to TUPE over. There’s been other setbacks too that will have reduced the profit, which will only be a problem if it is indeed Ticketus driven.
There’s no doubt legal loopholes that I, and ismellafix, haven’t accounted for, and for me, at least, it’s total guesswork, but if there is, indeed, nothing to stop it happening, it makes a lot of sense in a disgusting sort of way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-19875475
Looks like Duff and Duff(er)’s landed another well-paying gig.
Pay careful attention to who’s carrying out the administration and let’s see how long he spends over this one.
Barcabhoy @Barcabhoy1 1h
Precedent #6 metro.co.uk/sport/football…
Barcabhoy @Barcabhoy1 2h
Precedent #5 telegraph.co.uk/sport/football…
Barcabhoy @Barcabhoy1 2h
Precedent #4 news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/foot…
Barcabhoy @Barcabhoy1 2h
Precedent #3 uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/10112011/63/sp…
Barcabhoy @Barcabhoy1 2h
Precedent #2 goal.com/en-gb/news/288…
Barcabhoy @Barcabhoy1 2h
Precedent #1 espn.go.com/sports/soccer/…
doontheslope says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:38
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Absolute dynamite from Bampot Tommy, asking Ogilvie the questions that our MSM should have been asking. Brilliant.
(Ogilvie is at 1 hr and 4 mins. Radio Clyde also gets pelters.)
http://glasgowradio.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/internet-bampot-chats-with-sfa-president.html
==============================
Assuming the recording is legit, then that really is quite something.
For all the months that Scottish football fans have been complaining about CO, not one MSM hack has attempted to ask him any hard questions, [Thomo excepted.]
That it takes an Internet Bampot to ask those questions just shows up – yet again – how pathetic and obsolete the Scottish sports MSM is today.
…and will any ‘churnalist’ have the brass neck to refer to Tommy’s tape, [without any acknowledgement of course] ?
Interesting from CO’s interview, where he says that we should not assume that if everything is not in a contract then that is illegal and he does not know where that story came from.
Have we been given a hint of the commission decision that RFC acted within the SFA rules, while out-with FIFA’s?
Didnt CG say he was away on business on Saturday!!!
youtube.com/watch?v=9H4ja2RjcEU&feature=youtube_gdata_player …
Thanks to Harry Hood@Vandalgrease for posting!
StevieBC says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 23:07
Well CO came over just as some of my friends who have had dealings with the man said. A gentleman and very polite.
However while I appreciate that he needs to keep quiet until the LNS commission has sat, he gave the impression of not being wholly au fait with what the player registration requirements were.
Given this is at the heart of the whole matter I would have thought he would have used his time spent twidling his thumbs to research every angle on this. Therefore while not wanting to answer specifics with regard to Rangers he should have been able to say in general terms things like, that in his view the system used in Scotland for player registrations meets all domestic and international standards etc etc
Frankly I don’t think CO has a handle on his brief. The ‘big boy did it and ran away/nothing to do with me’ defense doesn’t hold much water as the question then is what the hell do you know about administering football and how have you got the top job.
In this case we must remember that people at the SFA are so eagle eyed they managed to spot Spartans didn’t date the second copy of player registration thus getting them chucked out the cup.
Given such pedantry the people in the registration department must surely be able to spot 10 years of improper registrations. (Similarly their records and archive should be pristine if LNS needs to examine them). However if some of the details of payments were never on the paperwork in the first place then no matter how pedantic and an-ally retentive you are about checking forms you wouldn’t know what was missing, would you?
youtube.com/watch?v=9H4ja2RjcEU&feature=youtube_gdata_player
StevieBC
There are many fascinating questions surrounding Tommy/Ogilvie interview.
– Ogilvie clearly states that he knows who this is, yet continues to give info. (Tommy even insists that he’ll phone back later, but Ogilvie reassures him that it is okay to continue.)
– Ogilvie is seriously claiming that the rules were different in the SPL when alleged wrong doing took place.
– He gives the wrong dates for his tenure at Rangers.
– Says he was only made president of SFA last year (thus absolving himself of Rangers getting European licence when they should never have had it.)
– He seems to point a finger at others, both at Rangers and at SFA.
– He has the MSM in his pocket. Why not divulge this info through them instead of an internet bampot?
(Well done bampot Tommy. Legend!)
nowoldandgrumpy says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 23:19
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Interesting from CO’s interview, where he says that we should not assume that if everything is not in a contract then that is illegal and he does not know where that story came from.
Have we been given a hint of the commission decision that RFC acted within the SFA rules, while out-with FIFA’s?
___________________________________________________________
Perhaps, but could it just be he’s covering his own position within the SFA. It is, after all, an SPL investigation and I suspect he’s just trying to distance himself from it and keep up the pretence of ‘I didn’t know/realise’. He’s not going to say outright, either, that the dual contracts/contracts that don’t contain all remunerations are illegal until the tribunal have ruled as one of his defences will be he was ignorant of the fact so didn’t recognise anything was wrong so is innocent (no he wouldn’t be). Desperate defence, but I think he’ll find himself in a desperate situation. He seems to have forgotten he was defending himself, not so long ago, by saying he didn’t deal with the contracts while at Ibrox, and has forgotten that more legally astute people than himself have ruled that a prima facie case of improper registration exists, and if the rules don’t require all payments to be noted, or that dual contracts are illegal, there would be no case to answer as that would have been the first thing to be ascertained. What should be remembered too, even if the contracts are ruled kosher, should they lose the FTT, then they will be found guilty of not paying tax (evasion?), surely as close to match fixing as it was under Whyte!
If I’m not mistaken, he wasn’t asked by Tommy about the dual contracts, just about payments not included on the contract would meaning improper registration, or at least, he only answered as if that was the only case to answer. Once again, his defence would be that he never saw the second contracts so was unaware of their existance. I think his whole stance was one of self defence and not the defence of Rangers, in this interview, at least 😉
This watching and waiting is such fun!! Good news all round 🙂
CO better hope he doesn’t end up in front of LNS or it could be a bit like this.
Tommy DeVito: [everyone laughs] Ya motherf*cker! I almost had him, I almost had him. Ya stuttering pr*ck ya. Frankie, was he shaking? I wonder about you sometimes, Campbell. You may fold under questioning.
M8Dreamers
As the deluded Rangers Tribute Act supporters consider parting with their money to line the pockets of Charles Green with his worthless Share Proposal, when will they wake up and smell the coffee with regards to being fleeced to death by the Club Owner.
Although I have no desire to see a cheating tax evading football club participating anywhere in Scottish Football apart from the very bottom tier, ahead of many small, honest and well run clubs who have been unable to obtain SL League status to date, I do not want to see any football supporter defrauded of their money by a second hand car salesman.
Tommy is fabulous when chasing the scent (Campbell Ogilvey).
He is a bit useless when ranting about a personal sense of injustice (Graham Bryce/Radio Clyde).
He should team up with me. Tommy with the passion & closeness to the issues. Me with a more distanced view & a very useful English accent!
What’d’you say, Tommy?
allyjambo says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:47
‘ ……the money men are pretty much all foreigners and don’t care about right and wrong..’
—–
AJ, I must chide you here.
The money men behind CG may indeed not care about right and wrong.
But ( if that is the case) it would be because they are INDIVIDUALLY rotten human beings, not because they are ‘foreigners’!
The fact that some of our minted pillars of the establishment may be rotten and corrupt does not mean that you and I are necessarily so, just because we are of the same race and country.
We must not allow ourselves to think like scum.
Anyone got an audio link to Stuart Cosgrove reading “The Laird o’ Baw” to Jabba this past Saturday? I’m in the U.S. and can’t get it on BBC site.
posmill says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 00:28
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Anyone got an audio link to Stuart Cosgrove reading “The Laird o’ Baw” to Jabba this past Saturday? I’m in the U.S. and can’t get it on BBC site.
————————–
You’re famous, posmill!
Happy to oblige:
http://www.btinternet.com/~k.miller18/TraynorOBaw.mp3
Finally got signed up to comment – woohoo!
Dunno if it’s of any use to anyone, or whether they have already been posted – but if it’s of any interest I have electronic copies of the SFA’s ‘Articles Of Association’ and ‘Registration Procedures’, both from 2000 at least… If anyone is interested then just drop a wee note here and I’ll respond tomorrow, as I’m hitting the sack now… lol
Here’s also a wee extract From the FIFA Regulations concerning the ‘Status of Football Players’ –
Chapter II. Non-Amatuer (sic) Players
ART. 5
Every player designated as non-amateur by his national association shall have a written contract with the club employing him.
Such contracts shall be financial contracts concluded for a predetermined period.
A copy of these contracts shall be provided to the national association concerned and, upon demand, made available to FIFA.
National associations may stipulate additional provisions to be included in every contract concluded between a club and a non-amateur player registered with the association.
Hope any of these may be of some use, otherwise I’ll just go back to lurking (and liking) mode… 😉
Have a good night peeps….
WeMustBeTold
Posmil
There are also the options to download podcasts that you can get outside uk if you want to listen to the goings on.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/scotfoot
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/otb
Observer says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 01:01
exiledcelt says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 02:01
Cheers Observer – enjoyed that – Cosgrove’s a great reader and Traynor’s reaction is comedy gold.
EC, I’ll definitely check out those links, thank you.
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat-drink-man-woman-16/singapore-led-consortium-closer-takeover-glasgow-rangers-3691834.html
key part of the link too remember
Ticketus associate director Oli Winton confirmed they have made contact with Mr Ng’s group and he told Today: “No final deal has been struck. We are speaking to all major stakeholders with an interest in Rangers FC, and that does include Bill Ng’s consortium.”
yet by 12th of july he is working on the rangers takeover
https://de.twitter.com/OliWinton/status/225574752654344193
he works for luther pendragon a pr firm, a bit more affirmation for the green is ticketus brigade.
here they are here
http://www.luther.co.uk/who_we_are/Oli_Winton.html
curiously not trumpeting any work on rangers,
mon the bampots!
Observer says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:14
26 0 Rate This
I suspect TSFM thinks I’m a bit of a pain/conspiracy theorist but the fact s/he let’s me stay on here is to the credit of the site.
—————
I’m not so sure it’s a credit to the site at all. I’ve listened to every clip you’ve posted. I still don’t hear the word ‘hope’ and I never have. All I hear is a stuttering, poorly enunciated ‘it’ull, int’ull’ [it’ll, it’ll]. Have you at any point thought that you might be wrong about this? Quite a few here have stated that they’re not hearing what you’re hearing.
In the unlikely event that the word ‘hope’ was uttered, it’s so unclear that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation. He may have at first have thought to say ‘I hope it won’t kick off’ which may have been changed on the hoof to the more assertive but garbled, ‘I … It’ull … it’ull kick off’.
To read so many posts on this is embarrassing. If this blog is going to get hung up on every unclear audio snippet from sports programmes – that may or may not be saying one thing or the other – then I fear TSFM will become a laughing stock.
From a poster on KDS
Wrote an email to media.uk@apple.com asking about their interest in renaming Ibrox. I wanted to know, as a Apple product user, what the future products might be on the back of them supporting a Scottish 3rd Division football ?……..still waiting.
So I got a reply from Apple today:
“Thanks for your email.
Where Are you seeing such comments?
This is just speculation. And on background there is no truth in this at all.
Rgds”
Re Guidigate – If Rangers fans can’t remember their club died there is little chance of them remembering what will be a months old mumbled word from a semi literate pundit if/when titles/cups are stricken from the history books. I agree with Danish Pastry it is best to drop this non issue.
allyjambo says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:47
ismellafix says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 17:20
Excellent posts as to how Green & Co might get their cash out and the trouble that would leave TRFC in.
Danish Pastry says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 07:19
In the unlikely event that the word ‘hope’ was uttered …
——
Aye, Observer, old chap. I have to agree with Wiener Cake there. Let it go.
I’m personally not surprised that the Clyde guy didn’t deny that Guidi said “I hope …”. Fact being that he plainly didn’t (say it). I really, really don’t see how anyone would think he did.
As I said before, this one should be laid to rest, even if temporarily until you get a result.
forgot to mention that luther pendragon is owned by octopus investment
http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/1367387/octopus-luther-pendragon
Very interesting analysis from someone who apparently is privy to the due diligence carried out by Bill Miller’s team. Worth reading right through.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2012/10/08/what-can-we-learn-from-the-financial-meltdown-of-glasgow-rangers-fc/
“Rangers is a peculiar club in many ways.
It reminds me of “Solo George”, the last surviving tortoise of its kind on the Galapagos Islands. Steadily growing older and becoming slower, fatter and lonelier until the inevitable.”
Club v Company
I don’t believe the club v company argument will ever be resolved fully. The majority of non Rangers fans will argue all day long that the club is about to be liquidated while oldco Rangers fans will stand firm on the belief that it was the company that ran Rangers that will cease to exist and the club remains.
With the clever use of English and business jargon both sides can point to “facts” that bolster their arguments. I will not try and decipher each argument that has taken place. A lot smarter people have tried and failed to get a common consensus on this blog.
What I will say is that in a few weeks’ time the “company” The Rangers Football Club Plc (In Administration), Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow, G51 2XD (Company number SC004276); will be handed over to liquidators BDO who will cross the “t’s” and dot the “I’s” before finally switching of the life support machine. They will scour it for every available penny (if there is anything left) for the creditors and investigate were it all went wrong.
This once proud “company” from the 1800’s will cease to exist. But not the club, it goes on.
The “company” that built Ibrox and redeveloped after the tragic Ibrox disaster will cease to exist. But not the club, it goes on.
The “company” that hired Struth and Symons paid for and developed Greig, Johnstone and Baxter and brought back the CWC to Ibrox will cease to exist. But not the club, it goes on.
The “company” that splashed out millions of pounds on Gascoigne, laudrup and Flo so their customers could enjoy the parties they had at their big hoose will cease to exist.
The “company” that built Murray Park, the conveyor belt for young Scottish talent will cease to exist.
The “company” that splashed out on planes trains and automobiles to take their employee’s to farfetched outposts of Europe to chase a dream and keep their customers happy will cease to exist.
The “company” that designed the badges and the club logos got the strips made, built the club shops and stores will cease to exist.
The “company” that introduced the anti-Catholic signing policy before rightly discarding it will cease to exist.
But not the club, you see, it goes on apparently. I am astounded that this “company” can be discarded so easily and without much fuss like a used contraceptive down a dark alley.
It appears to mean very little to old Rangers fans.
“It’s just the company that ran Rangers, not the club that’s about to die”
So I ask again. What is the definition of “the club”?
Danish Pastry says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 07:19
Sugar Daddy says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 09:21
angus1983 says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 09:23
All three of you have summed up what I felt from the start re Guidigate. I shall utter no more on the subject.
Observer 🙂
Keep up the good work !!!! 😉
Charles Green’s The Rangers Football Club = Norman Bates Mother 🙂
john clarke says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 00:23
allyjambo says:
Monday, October 8, 2012 at 22:47
The money men behind CG may indeed not care about right and wrong.
But ( if that is the case) it would be because they are INDIVIDUALLY rotten human beings, not because they are ‘foreigners’!
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To be fair to AJ although he didn’t express himself well, I took him to mean that as ‘foreigners’ they would have no emotional attachment to either Scottish Football or Rangers (in whatever form) and therefore had no feelings for either that would make them think twice about ripping both off (the other aspects of their characters taken into account of course, not that they would do so just because they were foreigners).
http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/banner-headlines-a-self-inflicted-mess-for-the-sfa/
SouthernExile says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 09:29
It is indeed a great article and it’s conclusions are very close to the truth – the problem for Rangers now and Rangers past is they simply “can’t handle the truth” …………that’s why Green like his predecessors can only promise them moonbeams, it’s the only language they understand, it’s the only one they want to understand.
They are a huge club in a small country with a small market (even including overseas) which all adds up to making them a small club in the grand global scheme of things, at best they can make up the numbers in the Champions League and the same is true for Celtic and every other Scottish club.
Celtic have started to accept they are what they are to a certain extent but Rangers language is still all about getting back to where they belong at the top of the pile and last 16 regulars in Europe etc etc. Their hyperbolic ambitions exceed their abilities and capabilities.
As the article states they need to accept they are where they are and adjust to new realities, no progress will be made otherwise.
As Gandhi said “An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it.”
Some thoughts from RM posters on CG’s recent meeting with the RST … it seems that the Bears may actually be starting to sniff something not quite right in the air.
——
Posted by Bearger:
Couple of others things he said on Friday night that I’ve been thinking about. I do believe he plays to the gallery and says things he thinks we want to hear.
1. Talking about the future and players we should sign. He lauded to our scouting in USA plus looking at India and China. He said (I’m will to be corrected) that the Chinese guy Celtc signed (Zheng?) made them £60M in shirt sales! Also said that Manu made plenty out of a very poor player in Park.
2. He made the point that this month was the first he was paid a wage since coming to Rangers and he was due 10% of the club. Now I thought he said when he took over that there would be no wage for him, just the 10% when his people sold.
No big deal but things are changing.
Posted by simplythebest:
I highly doubt he was ever going to be working a tough long job for no wage.
Posted by Bearger:
Aye but did he not say that at first ?
Posted by Julesgers:
There is no way on gods earth did hellik make 60m on shirt sales over one player..There would be a que to sign chinese player if that was the case.
Posted by AlCapone:
correct, tops sell for £3 in China….that means about 40 million shifted!
Posted by Bearger:
Couple of other statements he made that did not quite go together. When talking about finances he said that being in the 3rd division he should have made 25% of staff redundant.
He did not do this because the staff were very good and did not want to be in a position in a few years of having to try and get replacements when we are back at the top.
He also stated more than once that we would never rejoin the SPL as long as he is CEO. Could be he knows something or he could resign of course.
Posted by Billykelly:
So how many high profile Chinese players are likely to be lining up to play in the Scottish Third Division. Does Green know anything about our situation?
Posted by Ryangers193:
£60m ahahahahahahahahahaha
Posted by Swally:
I can’t understand the reticence to be open about money.
Listening To Stuart Cosgroves renditon of the Posmil Poem I could not help but reflect on that one word response from Jim Traynor . In my opinion Mr. Traynor’s tone threw up a dark, almost ancestral response to what was a joyful, and exuberant rendition of a funny, satirical take on the activities of the MSM at the table of the Mintman. Within one word, ‘rubbish’ ,there emanated in tone ,in my opinion ,a meanness, a lack of giving and a general hostility,with an undertone of aggression,sourness and anger.
But then I could be wrong,maybe he just didn’t like it. Can’t think why.
rantinrobin says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 11:18
Listening To Stuart Cosgroves renditon of the Posmil Poem I could not help but reflect on that one word response from Jim Traynor . In my opinion Mr. Traynor’s tone threw up a dark, almost ancestral response to what was a joyful, and exuberant rendition of a funny, satirical take on the activities of the MSM at the table of the Mintman. Within one word, ‘rubbish’ ,there emanated in tone ,in my opinion ,a meanness, a lack of giving and a general hostility,with an undertone of aggression,sourness and anger.
But then I could be wrong,maybe he just didn’t like it. Can’t think why.
===========================================================
Why did they miss out the last couple of stanzas?
Majority expects the FTT appeal deliberations and the BDO appointment anytime soon. The MSM seem to be in purdah with their pre-written given counter campaigns at the ready. Ready to order Hullabaloos on standby so to speak.
We have a settled routine on here. We have popcorn. We have these things because as yet nothing has transpired remotely as expected in this debacle. Not saying the above won`t happen but `hedging` nonetheless against anything remotely straightforward.
There is still a criminal investigation, COI report, LN Independent Commission, the iron fist of the SFA is now handing down draconian “not proven” judgements that aren`t even suspended for a year! – And goodness knows what else.
My popcorn is on the “Goodness knows what else” is next up. Stay alert men – 😉
rantinrobin says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 11:18
‘ Within one word, ‘rubbish’ ,there emanated in tone ,in my opinion ,a meanness, a lack of giving and a general hostility,with an undertone of aggression,sourness and anger.
—–
That there is no love lost between Stuart Cosgrove and Jabba was very plainly evident.
There was pure devilment and glee in Cosgrove’s reading of the ‘lamb’ line, which was clearly an unscripted and very very personal dig at Jabba.
And Jabba did not like it one little bit, knowing that his normal bullying, patronising and sometimes distinctly unpleasantly rude, stance could not prevail against Cosgrove’s much sharper, more articulately forceful energy.
Jabba has lost every verbal tussle that the two have had.
And that must annoy the hell out of him.
I wish Mr Charles would make another statement.
I could use a good laugh.
SouthernExile says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 09:29
15 1 i
Rate This
Very interesting analysis from someone who apparently is privy to the due diligence carried out by Bill Miller’s team. Worth reading right through.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2012/10/08/what-can-we-learn-from-the-financial-meltdown-of-glasgow-rangers-fc/
“Rangers is a peculiar club in many ways.
It reminds me of “Solo George”, the last surviving tortoise of its kind on the Galapagos Islands. Steadily growing older and becoming slower, fatter and lonelier until the inevitable.”
—————————————————————————————————–
Good article, particularly with the analysis and 4 steps needed for success.
1 – Culture change – embrace new ways of doing business
2 – Austerity – “The right leader will be comfortable being unpopular. Any new owner who is unwilling to stand up to what will be a powerful hue and cry from Rangers fans and supporters is not going to be successful”
3 – Money Ball – “Using a smart, worldwide scouting system, maximizing the Murray Park Academy, teaching a style of play that is attractive and developing promising players into good and great players is the way forward.”
4 – Drive Revenues
Its still early doors but on Point 2, Green clearly falls down. He wants to be popular, whether or not this is a ploy to fleece fans through a share sale, its not going to end well.
To juxtapose that against Fergus McCann, he was unpopular and seen as being penny pinching. He saved Celtic and laid the foundations for a stable successful club.
john clarke says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 11:59
The worrying thing about the no love lost between SC and Jabba is that if this decends much further then the spat becomes the story and Your call simply becomes a vehicle for lets all laugh at Jabba, which in my opinion would be wrong.
Perhaps the BBC should change the format – a football equivilant of question time? A decent panel who are asked to respond to questions.
I think that format could work, and open up the sport to a level of enquiry and probity that question time provides for in the political sphere. The radio extension of the Scottishfootballmonitor?
For those who wish to partake in a self-serving panel voicing their opinions while the panel (aims to) puts others down, while promoting their own or the agendas of others, we (will always?) have SSB.
Re Jabba v Cosgrove
If we remember back a few months to another radio discussion between the two, Jim Traynor made a comment along the lines of Stuart Cosgrove ‘behaving himself’ if he wanted to be invited onto Your Call. This was at the height of the ‘bampot summer’ as I recall. With the subsequent verbal sparring between the two and the fairly obvious dislike, I think perhaps Mr T has had an ultimatum from his BBC bosses to introduce Mr C or lose the show. I’m not a great fan of the BBC but they do tend to see which way the wind is blowing and sway accordingly.
Long Time Lurker says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 12:25
The worrying thing about the no love lost between SC and Jabba is that if this decends much further then the spat becomes the story and Your call simply becomes a vehicle for lets all laugh at Jabba, which in my opinion would be wrong.
————————————————————————————————————————
For me ‘the spat’ between the two embodies the battle, as it were, in the Scottish media.Who will prevail? The forward thinking progressive players, such as Cosgrove,and Daly, or the ‘old order’? Traynor & Jackson et al
We would hope for a fresh approach in our media coverage. There are signs, such as the recent T English article on Goram.The acid test for our journalists will be when the Rangers implosion fully opens out over the next quarter.We shall see how forward thinking they are.For many there is no hope,given their horribly blinkered and deeply entrenched views .
angus1983 says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 12:21
Rate This
I wish Mr Charles would make another statement.
I could use a good laugh.
==================================================
Did you not hear the caller on Clyde SSB! A lifelong Stirling Albion fan apparently,involved in the hospitality side had nothing but praise for Charles Green signing shirts and shaking hands of all T’Rangers fans on Saturday. All the T’Rangers fans behaved impeccably also!
In newspaper reports of Green backing McCoist he says he’s down south on business! So now he can be in two places at one time!
Dont know about you but that made me laugh!
Dont know if SSB were set up or T’Rangers PR tried to place fluffy story?
Interesting tweet between RTC and Barcabhoy:
Barcabhoy@Barcabhoy1
@Coral whats the odds if Souness becomes Bolton manager that he signs a player from Rangers at crazy money
13mRangers Tax-Case@rangerstaxcase
@Barcabhoy1 @Coral Would he be so stupid as to bring that spotlight back on him? Besides, is he still good mates with the owner of Sevco?
Is this a hint at the nuclear event?
A friend of mine summed up Cosgrove’s status on Your Call perfectly.
He’s not a co-presenter – he’s Traynor’s babysitter.
rantinrobin says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 12:44
It will be interesting to see if the BBC move to change the format of Your call after this season. Perhaps the BBC are experimenting at the moment and letting SC and Jabba fight it out so to speak.
For me the main test will be how the MSM report on and react to the FTTT result when it is issued. I think that will be there last chance saloon. If the FTTT decision does go in favour of HMRC and there is evidence of deliberate industrial scale cheating and the MSM move to brush that under the carpet, then the game is well and truely up – no room for redemption.
angus1983 says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 11:09
Posted by Julesgers:
There is no way on gods earth did hellik make 60m on shirt sales over one player..There would be a que to sign chinese player if that was the case.
Posted by AlCapone:
correct, tops sell for £3 in China….that means about 40 million shifted!
—————————————————————————————————————-
Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion – oh the irony (and his arithmetic) 🙂
It looks as if Barcabhoy is dropping off the scale nuclear hints on Twitter at the moment:
Barcabhoy@Barcabhoy1
@rangerstaxcase that would be stupidity of nuclear proportions. But you couldn’t rule it out
7mRangers Tax-Case@rangerstaxcase
@Barcabhoy1 He has still not explained why he received payments (plural) from RFC almost 10 years after leaving their employment.
Whilst acknowledging the finery of recent posts,there are a number of people whose contributions are sorely missed.If you are out there watching please consider a return to this site.They are :
TBK , a heavy duty twitterer these days
Mark Dickson
Sarah Leyden
Hugh McEwan
Barcabhoy
Paulie Walnuts
………and the one and only Slimshady
There are others.Please come back.We miss you.
Jabba’s stock at Shortbread has nosedived over the past 18 months and when The Big Tax Case result goes against RFC(IA) he will be given a short opportunity to defend his corner but ultimately he will disappear from the airwaves in Scotland. Like his protege Jackson, who will forever be shackled with the “Billionaire Wealth Off The Radar” nonsense, he will pop up on 5live and Talksport to spout his views.
Danish Pastry says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 07:19y
—————
I’m not so sure it’s a credit to the site at all. I’ve listened to every clip you’ve posted. I still don’t hear the word ‘hope’ and I never have. All I hear is a stuttering, poorly enunciated ‘it’ull, int’ull’ [it’ll, it’ll]. Have you at any point thought that you might be wrong about this? Quite a few here have stated that they’re not hearing what you’re hearing.
In the unlikely event that the word ‘hope’ was uttered, it’s so unclear that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation. He may have at first have thought to say ‘I hope it won’t kick off’ which may have been changed on the hoof to the more assertive but garbled, ‘I … It’ull … it’ull kick off’.
To read so many posts on this is embarrassing. If this blog is going to get hung up on every unclear audio snippet from sports programmes – that may or may not be saying one thing or the other – then I fear TSFM will become a laughing stock.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The last para sums up my take on this too. Guidi is a thick idiot but he’s not the fox in this chase.
Jim Traynor is a very large waste of space. The only use for this windbag is as a moral check to your own thoughts and beliefs, anytime you recognise some similarities between your own understandings and attitudes to the jabmeisters is the time to retrace your steps, re-appraise the situation and look at where you have been going wrong.
This clowns raison detre is to spread confusion and conflict otherwise his newspaper column and phone in show would become as unimportant and irrelevant as he is in the publics minds.
Enjoy from Forbes Magazine
“What Can We Learn From the Financial Meltdown of Glasgow Rangers FC?
Jon Pritchet [Advisor to Bil Miller]
Rangers F.C. was ranked as one of the world’s most valuable clubs in 2007 by Forbes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It seems hard to fathom how one of the 25 biggest football clubs in the world (ranked by Forbes in 2007 at #25 with a valuation of $194 million) could come so close to cratering into the abyss. At least it does until you really understand how the club got here. Much like the Greek and the French citizens, Rangers nation refused to take its medicine when it got sick. Years and years of mortgaging the future by stealing tomorrow’s revenues to pay for today’s ambitions were a big part of the problem. When you combine that with an organization that did not tie its expenses to it revenues or even construct any sort of internal metrics to measure the effectiveness of its staff or player wages, you can start to get a picture of how the mighty Rangers arrived at bankruptcy and how 140 years of celebrated footballing history was almost terminated. While there are many contributing factors that will be explored here, the evidence points to hubris as the primary cause. While television revenues in the SPL were becoming increasingly smaller as a percentage of turnover (8% for Rangers in 2011) and season ticket sales were declining every year (down to 37,500 from 44,000 five years ago), Rangers continued to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Clearly, Rangers believed their Titanic was incapable of sinking – simply too big to fail. Failing to acknowledge the global shifts and winds of change, Rangers continued to pay more than they could afford to players, managers and executives (£26MM towards wages on £35MM of revenue). Employee benefits and perks continued to grow – creating an unsustainable set of obligations for a club that was seeing revenues decline. (sounds a lot like the US Government today) Like so many before them, the answer was always to place a bet on winning football as the catapult over the morass.
The straw that broke the camel’s back emerged in 2011 when it was revealed that the club had been paying players via employee benefit trusts (“EBTs”) which enabled the club to inflate the player’s take home pay, and thus pay their players more and hence attract better quality talent. This aggressive use of EBT’s came crashing down like a house of cards when the UK’s equivalent of the IRS (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) came knocking seeking over £75 million worth of unpaid taxes and penalties.
Are the Rangers a relic of the old business model or a harbinger of things to come? It is certainly true that Rangers are not the only club to have gotten itself way over the tips of its skis in the world of football. If you kicked a football across most of England and other European countries where the sport is dominant, you’d bounce off more than a few clubs that have struggled and who continue to struggle with huge, immovable debt mountains and obligations. In many ways, Rangers are a microcosm of what ails many parts of the Western World’s economy. The percentage of struggling and over-leveraged clubs has gotten so great that UEFA has passed a sweeping regulation that it plans to enforce beginning in 2013, which essentially requires clubs to operate without losing money. It is understandable how smaller clubs without the benefit of large season ticket bases, grand stadiums or winning histories could struggle to break even, but how does a club with more league championships than any other football club in the world get to this place? How did Rangers take 54 league titles, a 51,000 seat stadium, 40,000 season ticket holders and 5 million global followers to the brink of extinction?
The answer is by spending most of its time looking backwards into its glorious history rather than forwards into a future that required a major shift in business strategy. Like many formerly great companies, Rangers arrogantly refused to heed the warnings. In 2000, Sir David Murray infamously boasted, “For every five pounds Celtic spend, we will spend ten.” He followed through on that promise and the seeds were sewn. Rangers refused to recognize that in a global environment, new threats emerge rapidly and what you did yesterday doesn’t insulate you from competition tomorrow. When the battlefield changes, the battle plan needs to evolve or soldiers will die.
Before being sent to the Scottish Third Division this season, Rangers played in the SPL, the top level of football in the country of Scotland. There are 12 clubs in the league, but only two clubs have really mattered in terms of television viewership or attendance in the country. In 2011/12, Celtic and Rangers were responsible for 82% of all gate receipts for league matches and 94% of all television viewership of league matches. In other words, the other ten teams in the SPL were only responsible for 6% of the total viewers when you remove Rangers and Celtic. The average viewership of SPL games was 150,000 but the average viewership for Rangers versus Celtic was 900,000.
More fans fill Ibrox on a match day than all of the other SPL clubs (not counting Celtic) combined. This is not a league. This is two humongous clubs (now just one) playing with many woefully undersized, undercapitalized and overmatched clubs in a country of 5 million. It is not a fair fight. More importantly for Rangers, the Scottish Football Association and its member leagues are not capable of producing media revenues on the scale of most other countries.
In the aggregate, the SPL teams produce annual revenues of £125MM while the EPL produces annual revenues of £2.4 billon; the Budeslega £1.6 billion; Spanish League £1.5 billion; Italian Serie A £1.4 billion; The French League £1 billion and the Netherlands £400,000.
This is part of the problem that Rangers and Celtic face. The EPL has 20 teams – over half of whom have smaller stadiums and season ticket bases than Rangers or Celtic. However, the EPL has a global television deal worth £ 3 billion with SkySports and BT.
The SPL has a five-year £60 million deal.
For winning the SPL regular season, a club would receive £3 million in fees (in exchange for their media rights).
For winning the EPL last season, Manchester City received £61 million.
When Rangers play Celtic each season, the match is one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport. The entire country of Scotland is watching and the environment inside the venue is remarkable. This is why ESPN has ranked “The Old Firm” as one of the top three rivalries in all of football. Yet, despite this truly unique and powerful atmosphere, very view people around the globe can actually watch the derby live. By contrast, there were 460 million potential live viewers of the Manchester Derby (United vs. City) at the end of last season. In a global competition for viewers and buyers of shirts (jerseys), the EPL teams have a huge advantage. And it doesn’t stop there. The EPL clubs are building global brands by setting up business units in Asia, the Middle East and North America. These units will produce player academies &camps, merchandise sales, event tours and sponsor relationships. Over a few decades, this will produce generations of fans around the globe who pledge their support to Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool or Manchester City. While they build their global brands, the clubs are also producing significantly greater revenues and profits. One of the obvious results is a level of player wages that almost no other clubs in the world (other than a handful of the best clubs from around the globe) can match.
When my friend, Bill Miller came within an eyelash of buying the club back in May, lots of people wanted to know why he decided not to acquire Rangers. Much of the speculation was tied to the intensely negative reaction of fans. In truth, the fan sentiment played a much smaller role in the decision. In the end, the deal came down to the numbers – and the numbers just didn’t add up. Revenues were in a free fall. The most important revenue stream to Rangers, season tickets, was projected to be down by 20%. The club expected to lose nearly £10MM in 2012/13. Cash-flow from sponsorships was minimal and the administrators had already pulled out the cash from player wages, kit sponsorship and future payments due the club from the sale of several players. Worse, because the administrators had to make a deal to cut player wages to keep the club afloat, the new owner of Rangers would lose a substantial portion of asset value. In exchange for agreeing to reduce its wages for a period of three months, many players were able to negotiate an exemption from transfer fees. Kudos to the player reps and union who used the club’s insolvency to their advantage but effectively rendered the club impudent as a result. When HMRC ruled against the CVA exit from administration, which should not have surprised anyone, the die was cast. Forced to acquire the club through a Newco acquisition, the new Rangers owner lost somewhere in the neighborhood of £9MM – £15MM in player asset value. So, in exchange for a savings of £3MM this spring, Rangers lost three to five times that. As if that wasn’t enough, the analysis of management and executive contracts revealed more grim news. Due to the long-standing largess of the club, fully 70% of the fixed salaries and benefits of the employees were insulated from reduction or elimination. Without the ability to significantly reduce overhead expenses, a commercially reasonable turnaround of Rangers FC was not feasible. From Bill Miller’s perspective, there appeared no possible return on his considerable investment. I agreed with his assessment. Upon full inspection, Rangers was not a “turnaround” opportunity. It was (and is) an opportunity for someone with great wealth and a love of football and/or Scotland to give away tens and tens of millions of pounds. Unless some major, systemic changes occur within the current configuration of UK and European football leagues, I don’t think the Rangers math works.
Any critic can tell us what should have been done. The question now is what can Rangers do? The first step for Rangers is to admit that significant, fundamental shifts have occurred that will force it to make major changes to its business model. Like with any major shift in strategy, the hard part is often admitting that the previous strategy did not work. Having spent several months analyzing Rangers, here are four steps I recommend as the way forward for Rangers:
1) Culture Change. The football club may have been operated as a lifestyle for some or as a place for passionate fans to find a good job, but those days must end. From the top to the bottom, the organization must embrace a new way of doing business – one that focuses on accountability, productivity and accomplishment. While the previous 140 years were remarkable and worthy of great celebration and pride, they do not ensure financial or playing success in the future. Rangers may dominate Scotland but they no longer compete on the global stage. To get back to being ranked as one of the top 20 clubs in the world, Rangers must become hungry again. Rangers must develop the attitude of a gritty challenger – compelled to prove something rather than simply resting on the foundation built by the ones who came before.
2) Austerity. It may be unpopular and an affront to the personal sensibilities of some, but Rangers needs to learn to live within its means. It’s time to cut the fat from every department and rebuild an organization that values every pound and demands a return on any and all expenses. The club can’t afford to pay its manager over £1MM and then give every coach and executive premium healthcare, generous pensions, six weeks of vacation, exotic cars, free fuel, appearance fees and other perks. The club can’t afford to provide 45 employees with free cars. The club can’t afford to pay directors annual fees to simply attend matches, socialize and run up a large food and beverage tab. It’s also time to gently manage out that business line from every sporting club that is occupied by expensive past players who hold well paid positions, are protected from downsizing with overly generous notice periods and who do not bring professional skills to the table. Every financial and playing assumption must be challenged. This will not be easy and the new owner of Rangers, Charles Green, must be prepared to say “no” to people and processes that exist today. The right leader will be comfortable being unpopular. Any new owner who is unwilling to stand up to what will be a powerful hue and cry from Rangers fans and supporters is not going to be successful. Rangers, like an undisciplined child, needs tough love. Rangers needs a strong hand now. There will be plenty of time for love and respect when the child grows into a mature and responsible adult.
3) Money Ball. In the reality of the SPL, Rangers do not have the revenue streams to compete with the best clubs in the world. Building a financial budget around a deep run into Europe is a form of gambling. Paying a first team wage bill of 3-7 times the other teams in the SPL (not including Celtic) is silly. That ship has sailed. Rangers can’t keep up with the Jones’ on wages. What the club needs to do for now is to develop a much more efficient process for identifying, recruiting, signing and developing players. It’s a big world. The goal should not be to sign players that the fans know today. The goal should be to sign players than can contribute within a system that leads to winning football. Using a smart, worldwide scouting system, maximizing the Murray Park Academy, teaching a style of play that is attractive and developing promising players into good and great players is the way forward. This is not done by gut, instinct and long-held beliefs of how the game was played. This can only be done by embracing a methodology that employs metrics, science, training, teaching and coaching. This requires a manager with experience and relationships well beyond Western Europe. Under this system, Rangers can win and operate without loss making because its player costs will be recalibrated to match the new reality of Scottish Football and because there is now a worldwide market for players. If done properly, Rangers should be in the export business – making a tidy profit from its new customer base.
4) Drive Revenues. Over the course of many years, Rangers has seen a decline in its major revenue streams. Large sponsorship deals are not generating the amounts of cash they should. In some cases, they are not even generating cash at all. Instead of paying with cash, Rangers have some sponsors who actually provide goods and services to the employees of the organization in return for the sponsorship benefits. This is a slippery slope that leads to oblivion. In the worst cases, these sponsors may actually be costing the club cash when the full analysis is done. It is time for a full and complete overhaul on the commercial side of things. The club needs new and better sponsor deals. The club also needs to reevaluate its offerings to the community in the form of tickets, hospitality and premium seating. Additionally, it needs to consider how to drive maximum value for its merchandising programs. Despite being one of the top clubs in the world in terms of shirt sales, the club does not generate nearly as much profit as does Celtic – even though Celtic sells fewer shirts than Rangers. Add to this the commercial areas of catering, digital media, friendlies and Ibrox events and you can see that there is much opportunity for driving new and existing revenues, but it will take a smart plan and a team of equally smart and dedicated employees to get the revenue growing again.
Rangers is a peculiar club in many ways.
It reminds me of “Solo George”, the last surviving tortoise of its kind on the Galapagos Islands. Steadily growing older and becoming slower, fatter and lonelier until the inevitable.
In order to ensure that its fate does not follow that of “Solo George,” Rangers need a business strategy worthy of its status, worthy of its fan base and worthy of its history. It needs a sea change, and fast.
If Charles Green is not willing to face the fans, explain the economics and risk the torrent of abuse that will follow in the short term, then Rangers will find themselves shortly back in the same place.
Green must embrace change, cut back and then reshape the business plan, invest on a long term basis by accepting short term failure in order to remain relevant.
Like any insolvent business, Rangers needs to cut costs, reign in salaries, demand better quality commercial revenues and build a business that is lean, profitable and produces attractive, vibrant, talented players that, over time, will take it back into European football. It needs to spend no more than 50% of all revenues on player salaries (probably much less) and in the meantime it needs to work the “Old Firm” brand hard to fully exploit what that brand can mean on its (and Celtic’s) balance sheet and ensure that sponsorships are actually additive to cash-flow.
Most importantly, all of Rangers Nation needs to understand that the time has come for change. The soldiers on the battlefield are dying. The glories of the past, while spectacular and worthy of celebration and remembrance, are not going to ensure future success. The future marches on. Rangers should not only be a part of that future, they should be influencing it through their bold actions. However, until bold action is taken, the future for Rangers remains in serious jeopardy.
“
Whilst I dispute much of the rhetoric and valuations (in particular 5million fan base worldwide – utter nonsense spoonfed from media house) its quite an enlightening article.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sportsmoney/2012/10/08/what-can-we-learn-from-the-financial-meltdown-of-glasgow-rangers-fc/
What Can We Learn From the Financial Meltdown of Glasgow Rangers FC?
Jon Pritchett, Contributor
Rangers F.C. was ranked as one of the world’s most valuable clubs in 2007 by Forbes.
It seems hard to fathom how one of the 25 biggest football clubs in the world (ranked by Forbes in 2007 at #25 with a valuation of $194 million) could come so close to cratering into the abyss. At least it does until you really understand how the club got here. Much like the Greek and the French citizens, Rangers nation refused to take its medicine when it got sick. Years and years of mortgaging the future by stealing tomorrow’s revenues to pay for today’s ambitions were a big part of the problem. When you combine that with an organization that did not tie its expenses to it revenues or even construct any sort of internal metrics to measure the effectiveness of its staff or player wages, you can start to get a picture of how the mighty Rangers arrived at bankruptcy and how 140 years of celebrated footballing history was almost terminated. While there are many contributing factors that will be explored here, the evidence points to hubris as the primary cause. While television revenues in the SPL were becoming increasingly smaller as a percentage of turnover (8% for Rangers in 2011) and season ticket sales were declining every year (down to 37,500 from 44,000 five years ago), Rangers continued to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Clearly, Rangers believed their Titanic was incapable of sinking – simply too big to fail. Failing to acknowledge the global shifts and winds of change, Rangers continued to pay more than they could afford to players, managers and executives (£26MM towards wages on £35MM of revenue). Employee benefits and perks continued to grow – creating an unsustainable set of obligations for a club that was seeing revenues decline. (sounds a lot like the US Government today) Like so many before them, the answer was always to place a bet on winning football as the catapult over the morass.
The straw that broke the camel’s back emerged in 2011 when it was revealed that the club had been paying players via employee benefit trusts (“EBTs”) which enabled the club to inflate the player’s take home pay, and thus pay their players more and hence attract better quality talent. This aggressive use of EBT’s came crashing down like a house of cards when the UK’s equivalent of the IRS (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) came knocking seeking over £75 million worth of unpaid taxes and penalties.
Are the Rangers a relic of the old business model or a harbinger of things to come? It is certainly true that Rangers are not the only club to have gotten itself way over the tips of its skis in the world of football. If you kicked a football across most of England and other European countries where the sport is dominant, you’d bounce off more than a few clubs that have struggled and who continue to struggle with huge, immovable debt mountains and obligations. In many ways, Rangers are a microcosm of what ails many parts of the Western World’s economy. The percentage of struggling and over-leveraged clubs has gotten so great that UEFA has passed a sweeping regulation that it plans to enforce beginning in 2013, which essentially requires clubs to operate without losing money. It is understandable how smaller clubs without the benefit of large season ticket bases, grand stadiums or winning histories could struggle to break even, but how does a club with more league championships than any other football club in the world get to this place? How did Rangers take 54 league titles, a 51,000 seat stadium, 40,000 season ticket holders and 5 million global followers to the brink of extinction?
The answer is by spending most of its time looking backwards into its glorious history rather than forwards into a future that required a major shift in business strategy. Like many formerly great companies, Rangers arrogantly refused to heed the warnings. In 2000, Sir David Murray infamously boasted, “For every five pounds Celtic spend, we will spend ten.” He followed through on that promise and the seeds were sewn. Rangers refused to recognize that in a global environment, new threats emerge rapidly and what you did yesterday doesn’t insulate you from competition tomorrow. When the battlefield changes, the battle plan needs to evolve or soldiers will die.
Before being sent to the Scottish Third Division this season, Rangers played in the SPL, the top level of football in the country of Scotland. There are 12 clubs in the league, but only two clubs have really mattered in terms of television viewership or attendance in the country. In 2011/12, Celtic and Rangers were responsible for 82% of all gate receipts for league matches and 94% of all television viewership of league matches. In other words, the other ten teams in the SPL were only responsible for 6% of the total viewers when you remove Rangers and Celtic. The average viewership of SPL games was 150,000 but the average viewership for Rangers versus Celtic was 900,000.
More fans fill Ibrox on a match day than all of the other SPL clubs (not counting Celtic) combined. This is not a league. This is two humongous clubs (now just one) playing with many woefully undersized, undercapitalized and overmatched clubs in a country of 5 million. It is not a fair fight. More importantly for Rangers, the Scottish Football Association and its member leagues are not capable of producing media revenues on the scale of most other countries.
In the aggregate, the SPL teams produce annual revenues of £125MM while the EPL produces annual revenues of £2.4 billon; the Budeslega £1.6 billion; Spanish League £1.5 billion; Italian Serie A £1.4 billion; The French League £1 billion and the Netherlands £400,000.
This is part of the problem that Rangers and Celtic face. The EPL has 20 teams – over half of whom have smaller stadiums and season ticket bases than Rangers or Celtic. However, the EPL has a global television deal worth £ 3 billion with SkySports and BT.
The SPL has a five-year £60 million deal.
For winning the SPL regular season, a club would receive £3 million in fees (in exchange for their media rights).
For winning the EPL last season, Manchester City received £61 million.
When Rangers play Celtic each season, the match is one of the greatest spectacles in all of sport. The entire country of Scotland is watching and the environment inside the venue is remarkable. This is why ESPN has ranked “The Old Firm” as one of the top three rivalries in all of football. Yet, despite this truly unique and powerful atmosphere, very view people around the globe can actually watch the derby live. By contrast, there were 460 million potential live viewers of the Manchester Derby (United vs. City) at the end of last season. In a global competition for viewers and buyers of shirts (jerseys), the EPL teams have a huge advantage. And it doesn’t stop there. The EPL clubs are building global brands by setting up business units in Asia, the Middle East and North America. These units will produce player academies &camps, merchandise sales, event tours and sponsor relationships. Over a few decades, this will produce generations of fans around the globe who pledge their support to Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool or Manchester City. While they build their global brands, the clubs are also producing significantly greater revenues and profits. One of the obvious results is a level of player wages that almost no other clubs in the world (other than a handful of the best clubs from around the globe) can match.
When my friend, Bill Miller came within an eyelash of buying the club back in May, lots of people wanted to know why he decided not to acquire Rangers. Much of the speculation was tied to the intensely negative reaction of fans. In truth, the fan sentiment played a much smaller role in the decision. In the end, the deal came down to the numbers – and the numbers just didn’t add up. Revenues were in a free fall. The most important revenue stream to Rangers, season tickets, was projected to be down by 20%. The club expected to lose nearly £10MM in 2012/13. Cash-flow from sponsorships was minimal and the administrators had already pulled out the cash from player wages, kit sponsorship and future payments due the club from the sale of several players. Worse, because the administrators had to make a deal to cut player wages to keep the club afloat, the new owner of Rangers would lose a substantial portion of asset value. In exchange for agreeing to reduce its wages for a period of three months, many players were able to negotiate an exemption from transfer fees. Kudos to the player reps and union who used the club’s insolvency to their advantage but effectively rendered the club impudent as a result. When HMRC ruled against the CVA exit from administration, which should not have surprised anyone, the die was cast. Forced to acquire the club through a Newco acquisition, the new Rangers owner lost somewhere in the neighborhood of £9MM – £15MM in player asset value. So, in exchange for a savings of £3MM this spring, Rangers lost three to five times that. As if that wasn’t enough, the analysis of management and executive contracts revealed more grim news. Due to the long-standing largess of the club, fully 70% of the fixed salaries and benefits of the employees were insulated from reduction or elimination. Without the ability to significantly reduce overhead expenses, a commercially reasonable turnaround of Rangers FC was not feasible. From Bill Miller’s perspective, there appeared no possible return on his considerable investment. I agreed with his assessment. Upon full inspection, Rangers was not a “turnaround” opportunity. It was (and is) an opportunity for someone with great wealth and a love of football and/or Scotland to give away tens and tens of millions of pounds. Unless some major, systemic changes occur within the current configuration of UK and European football leagues, I don’t think the Rangers math works.
Any critic can tell us what should have been done. The question now is what can Rangers do? The first step for Rangers is to admit that significant, fundamental shifts have occurred that will force it to make major changes to its business model. Like with any major shift in strategy, the hard part is often admitting that the previous strategy did not work. Having spent several months analyzing Rangers, here are four steps I recommend as the way forward for Rangers:
1) Culture Change. The football club may have been operated as a lifestyle for some or as a place for passionate fans to find a good job, but those days must end. From the top to the bottom, the organization must embrace a new way of doing business – one that focuses on accountability, productivity and accomplishment. While the previous 140 years were remarkable and worthy of great celebration and pride, they do not ensure financial or playing success in the future. Rangers may dominate Scotland but they no longer compete on the global stage. To get back to being ranked as one of the top 20 clubs in the world, Rangers must become hungry again. Rangers must develop the attitude of a gritty challenger – compelled to prove something rather than simply resting on the foundation built by the ones who came before.
2) Austerity. It may be unpopular and an affront to the personal sensibilities of some, but Rangers needs to learn to live within its means. It’s time to cut the fat from every department and rebuild an organization that values every pound and demands a return on any and all expenses. The club can’t afford to pay its manager over £1MM and then give every coach and executive premium healthcare, generous pensions, six weeks of vacation, exotic cars, free fuel, appearance fees and other perks. The club can’t afford to provide 45 employees with free cars. The club can’t afford to pay directors annual fees to simply attend matches, socialize and run up a large food and beverage tab. It’s also time to gently manage out that business line from every sporting club that is occupied by expensive past players who hold well paid positions, are protected from downsizing with overly generous notice periods and who do not bring professional skills to the table. Every financial and playing assumption must be challenged. This will not be easy and the new owner of Rangers, Charles Green, must be prepared to say “no” to people and processes that exist today. The right leader will be comfortable being unpopular. Any new owner who is unwilling to stand up to what will be a powerful hue and cry from Rangers fans and supporters is not going to be successful. Rangers, like an undisciplined child, needs tough love. Rangers needs a strong hand now. There will be plenty of time for love and respect when the child grows into a mature and responsible adult.
3) Money Ball. In the reality of the SPL, Rangers do not have the revenue streams to compete with the best clubs in the world. Building a financial budget around a deep run into Europe is a form of gambling. Paying a first team wage bill of 3-7 times the other teams in the SPL (not including Celtic) is silly. That ship has sailed. Rangers can’t keep up with the Jones’ on wages. What the club needs to do for now is to develop a much more efficient process for identifying, recruiting, signing and developing players. It’s a big world. The goal should not be to sign players that the fans know today. The goal should be to sign players than can contribute within a system that leads to winning football. Using a smart, worldwide scouting system, maximizing the Murray Park Academy, teaching a style of play that is attractive and developing promising players into good and great players is the way forward. This is not done by gut, instinct and long-held beliefs of how the game was played. This can only be done by embracing a methodology that employs metrics, science, training, teaching and coaching. This requires a manager with experience and relationships well beyond Western Europe. Under this system, Rangers can win and operate without loss making because its player costs will be recalibrated to match the new reality of Scottish Football and because there is now a worldwide market for players. If done properly, Rangers should be in the export business – making a tidy profit from its new customer base.
4) Drive Revenues. Over the course of many years, Rangers has seen a decline in its major revenue streams. Large sponsorship deals are not generating the amounts of cash they should. In some cases, they are not even generating cash at all. Instead of paying with cash, Rangers have some sponsors who actually provide goods and services to the employees of the organization in return for the sponsorship benefits. This is a slippery slope that leads to oblivion. In the worst cases, these sponsors may actually be costing the club cash when the full analysis is done. It is time for a full and complete overhaul on the commercial side of things. The club needs new and better sponsor deals. The club also needs to reevaluate its offerings to the community in the form of tickets, hospitality and premium seating. Additionally, it needs to consider how to drive maximum value for its merchandising programs. Despite being one of the top clubs in the world in terms of shirt sales, the club does not generate nearly as much profit as does Celtic – even though Celtic sells fewer shirts than Rangers. Add to this the commercial areas of catering, digital media, friendlies and Ibrox events and you can see that there is much opportunity for driving new and existing revenues, but it will take a smart plan and a team of equally smart and dedicated employees to get the revenue growing again.
Rangers is a peculiar club in many ways.
It reminds me of “Solo George”, the last surviving tortoise of its kind on the Galapagos Islands. Steadily growing older and becoming slower, fatter and lonelier until the inevitable.
In order to ensure that its fate does not follow that of “Solo George,” Rangers need a business strategy worthy of its status, worthy of its fan base and worthy of its history. It needs a sea change, and fast.
If Charles Green is not willing to face the fans, explain the economics and risk the torrent of abuse that will follow in the short term, then Rangers will find themselves shortly back in the same place.
Green must embrace change, cut back and then reshape the business plan, invest on a long term basis by accepting short term failure in order to remain relevant.
Like any insolvent business, Rangers needs to cut costs, reign in salaries, demand better quality commercial revenues and build a business that is lean, profitable and produces attractive, vibrant, talented players that, over time, will take it back into European football. It needs to spend no more than 50% of all revenues on player salaries (probably much less) and in the meantime it needs to work the “Old Firm” brand hard to fully exploit what that brand can mean on its (and Celtic’s) balance sheet and ensure that sponsorships are actually additive to cash-flow.
Most importantly, all of Rangers Nation needs to understand that the time has come for change. The soldiers on the battlefield are dying. The glories of the past, while spectacular and worthy of celebration and remembrance, are not going to ensure future success. The future marches on. Rangers should not only be a part of that future, they should be influencing it through their bold actions. However, until bold action is taken, the future for Rangers remains in serious jeopardy.
Jon Pritchett was one of The Red Neck Knights (“Wild Bill Miller”) financial advisors….
“Upon full inspection, Rangers was not a “turnaround” opportunity. It was (and is) an opportunity for someone with great wealth and a love of football and/or Scotland to give away tens and tens of millions of pounds. Unless some major, systemic changes occur within the current configuration of UK and European football leagues, I don’t think the Rangers math works.”
Scapa, wow.John Pritchet gets it.That would be the article one of our own Scottish business commentators should have written.
An interesting article posted on Twitter by one of the STV guys. It seems that a Share Issue this year/early next just might stave off another Administration. What will they do in future years ? Share Issues every year ? 😉
http://local.stv.tv/glasgow/194041-rangers-bidder-bill-millers-advisor-warns-club-could-go-bust-again/
rantinrobin says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 13:09
………… “TBK , a heavy duty twitterer these days…”
are you calling me a “sweetie wife” (c. EdgarBlamm)
scapaflow14 says:
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 13:18
beat me to it – apologies for the double post (before I get more thumbs down than my usual stalkers)…. 😉
“The straw that broke the camel’s back emerged in 2011 when it was revealed that the club had been paying players via employee benefit trusts (“EBTs”) which enabled the club to inflate the player’s take home pay, and thus pay their players more and hence attract better quality talent.”
Forbes magazine gets it, pity our scribes don’t.