More Thoughts From The Sofa

El cormaco has been musing again, and ponders the crisis at Ibrox

Firstly, thank you to any one who read my previous post about the future of Scottish football. I had every good intention of getting into a discussion on some of the very interesting comments left on it, but work intervened and I didn’t have the time to get back to it.

This piece comes with the same warning / disclaimer as the first – this is based on opinion, half remembered stuff from elsewhere and absolutely no independent research of my own. I read a lot online and listen to a lot of Celtic related podcasts, including the E Tims recent efforts to split the recently reformed Mogwai up again.

Good try Ralph.

I held off on Second  Rangers stuff before, I m a Celtic fan after all and Celtic are always the priority. But with the Ibrox lads making much noise about how they are “coming” (they’ve been taking their time about it. Quite a few male porn stars would like to be able to hold it off for as long as they’ve been able to) I thought I d have a wee review of how things have been going since David King became, er, King.

So Second Rangers, the gift that just keeps giving, and giving and giving. They’ve had a little detour on the journey, but they are definitely coming this time, shedding 11 players in the process and replacing them with the superstars of tomorrow who have had a variety of not entirely glamorous stop off points on their own journeys to the very top so far.

Now, there is nothing wrong in signing players no one had heard of, we do it all the time now, but when they are bigging up signing a young guy  into their development squad from a club below non league, it smells of desperation ( and beer and p*sh). And when their new keeper is talking about Champions league and getting in the England squad you either laugh or wonder where you can get your hands on what he’s been having. Then every former player of Rangers Mk1 still alive comes out saying how great everything is looking, Chris Jack and Matthew Lindsay are tumescent, the RST are going all in with King and you know there is the pungent smell of BS floating about.

There was an anecdote, about I think Khrushchev, probably untrue, but illustrative I think of how Second  Rangers have approached their problems to date. It also illustrates how this approach only has a finite period of time during which it is useful

The story goes that when Khrushchev came to power in the former Soviet Union he was told that in his desk he would find two envelopes, Envelope 1 and Envelope 2, to be opened in sequence when he ran into crises.

Several months later he ran into his first major crisis, and remembered the envelopes. He opened the first envelope:

“Blame everything on the old regime, and promise better times ahead”.

“Great advice ” thought Khrushchev, especially given that he was succeeding Stalin, a man with much blood on his hands.

So Khrushchev averted the crisis by blaming it all on problems he inherited from the previous leader, but assured his people he was working to fix the mistakes.

Of course some time later, after Khrushchev was well established as in control, came a second major crisis, too far after the fall of Stalin to be able to blame him. Khrushchev remembered he still had the second envelope. What strategy could he employ to extricate himself from the mire this time?

When he opened the envelope the message was short but the meaning was clear:

“Sit down and write two letters”.

Not having the “a big boy did it and ran away” excuse any more there was nothing left for him to do but get out of Dodge, passing on the same advice he’d received to his successor.

So let’s look at “Kings Revolution” to date, the problems they’ve encountered and the strategies they’ve used, to see if they were given the same letters handed to Khrushchev….

3-4 months on from the day Christopher Jack proclaimed “the rebels have won””

What have they won ?

they have…

… Lost their listing (but *cough* are working hard behind the scenes to be re listed). This of course was the fault of the old board, which did in fact still have a listing while they were in place. The delisting was not imminent until the change in board make up, but still easy enough to pin on the old board.

….Lost their NOMAD. Likewise, the reality is that the old board had a NOMAD and were publicly warning that the new board with King on it would not be able to gain a NOMAD. The strategy? Yes, you guessed, it was the old boards fault and a new NOMAD was imminent. We’re still waiting incidentally.

….Tanked their share price. Due to the delisting shares are available now to buy only by sending in a stamped addressed envelope and a blank cheque payable to David King. This of course is also the fault of the old board and their mismanagement leading to the delisting, and not the active agitating by Kings followers and the criminal record he has.

….Had it confirmed that their noisy protests against the old board cost them their auditors. Despite Deloittes  making it very clear that they walked away because of the threats to their staff (they don’t say from whom but the SoS & Union of Fannies were protesting everyone and everything connected to the Ibrox club in the same time period at the behest of King & co, to drive down the share price and deliver the “club” to them). So far they are still blaming “legacy issues” aka the Khrushchev approach on this one too, and not being called out on it by the fine press pack that follow Scottish football.

…..Narrowly won a vote to resist paying back Sports Direct its £5m. If I were one of them this would be my biggest concern, not the money per se, but the fact that club badges, logos etc everything (except the delightful fans) that mark this club out as “a” Rangers is in fact not under their own control. But this is “a good thing” of course. And is not a loan either, Timmy. People in business just want to give the cuddly bears millions of pounds, cause you know, they re the peepil n that.

Who to blame for this unseemly mess ? W

Where they are foregoing 25% of their retail, securities on their assets and the IP of “the club” for the sake of £5m that King admits he doesn’t even view as a loan? (what, a gift? From Big Mike? Yeah, right on brother!)

The previous board of course,  for negotiating poor deals to keep the lights on when no one else was willing to put money in (in part due to the hostile actions of the King faction)

They have bleated very publicly about the hardship of  these deals the club entered into when no one else was willing to put up money to keep the lights on (King had his pretendy offer with conditions that no one would agree to and no actual names attached to his funding bid), they have bleated about paying a former manager what he is entitled to in his contract and tried getting the press to whip up an anti Ally campaign, which rather fizzled out. All these issues, the fault of course of the previous board of course.

Some of the issues above undoubtedly were caused or exacerbated by the previous board, but the lack of any progress almost 4 months on is harder to pin on that pesky old board.

Some other things that the new board have done include:

…Conveniently forgetting their manifesto of transparency upon which they came to “power”. I haven’t heard much more on investigations into who Blue Pitch and Margherita holdings really are, have you? Or the real nature of those “onerous Contracts” Phil MacGhiollabhan has been able to shed so much light on in the past and that the new board promised to get to the bottom of.

….Flip flopped on levels and timings of investment. Prior to the “take over” money was desperately needed urgently, the club’s infrastructure was in critical condition, the new board would hit the ground running, putting in this desperately needed money straight away, Kings children’s inheritance money was going in to make the mighty Rangers mighty again, King would be investing regardless of whether he got to be chairman or not, and they’d be hearing Zadok the priest at Ibrox in no time.

Since then of course King’s money has been harder to locate than a Catholic in the Copland Road stand, the urgency for investment seems to have disappeared entirely, and in a ridiculous about face King blackmailed the SFA by insisting he would only ever invest on the basis that he was chairman, and that this had always been his publicly stated position. Needless to say the SFA blinked and the glib and shameless one was back on a board at Ibrox along with the magnificently bouffant hair of Paul Murray, who also fails to meet the F&P criteria, but is of course an RRM ( Real Rangers Man ) , so that’s all fine.

This process of course was also useful in providing another convenient reason why Kings wallet was shut tighter than the doors on a Greek bank this morning; it was the SFA’s fault. Nonsense of course, and in direct contrast to pre EGM statements.

Treated released players very shabbily with the possibility of court action due to contractual payments being unpaid (familiar that one) and publicly called them out on their total failure. Quite likely true, but there are certain things club chairmen should not be doing publicly, and this is one of them. There is of course an unspoken subtext that the terrible players and results were in fact the fault or, yes, you got it, that pesky old board.

Appointed a director ( the Islamophbic homophobe Chris Graham ) who lasted two days, and who Tims online had laughed off as entirely unsuitable within minutes of his appointment. Within an hour of his appointment I was able to see tweets he ‘d sent that were highly offensive and inappropriate but  it seems he was appointed apparently without any vetting as a thank you for  the fine job he’d done agitating on the new boards behalf. It says a lot about the level of corporate governance and oversight they are engaging in when this discredited fool is in the directors box with his tie and blazer on. Cwissy did the only thing he could and fell on his sword, hoist indeed by his own petard and saving the board any need to consider taking any responsibility for being stupid enough to appoint him in the first place.

King has been shown to be untruthful about his father’s role in his becoming a “Rangers” fan – only a small lie granted, but it says something about him, no? That he could lie so casually, and apparently with no sense of embarrassment at being caught out. Glib and shameless even.

He also rather glibly admitted he hadn’t seen the team play in the time since Mc Call had been appointed interim manager and his “jetting in” for a crucial play off game. This time it was the fault of him living in South Africa; the internet, Rangers TV and live streaming obviously all having failed to make it out there so far. Now if I were appointed chairman of a football club, I imagine I d try to find the time to at least watch them play, to get a sense of where things are going right and wrong, and to get a sense of what needs to be done (and spent) to make things right. Dave of course needs to do no such thing, he’s a RRM who was handed his legacy from his dad. Except he wasn’t.

They have had some Second  Rangers fans actually begin to wake up and put aside the “Timmy conspiracy WATP” mindset for a while, look at King and his finances and come to the same conclusion we obsessed have –the emperor has no clothes

They have created even more divisions in their support base between those fans mentioned above that are applying the same criteria and scrutiny to this board as the King men applied to the last board and realising he’s much more naughty boy than messiah,. The bear on bear scrapping is beginning online, and will intensify in the vacuum of clear information or direction from this board.

They have promised moonbeams of “over investment”, increasing wage bills, “doing whatever it takes” to gain promotion that to date have yielded out of contract nobodies aided by lamb –tastic PR spin while their glorious new leader feigns interest / hides out several thousand miles away.

They have shown themselves up to be exactly where their footballing abilities mean they should be, in the league below the top league, after an absolute horsing by Motherwell, who appeared light years ahead in terms of pace, effort, and ability.

They have had it revealed that on the day of the EGM King was meeting with Ashley. The subject of the discussions is a matter still of some debate, but what is clear is that when King was being interviewed around the time he “took power” he was fond of saying that he didn’t see any issues with Sports Direct as of much importance. He seems to have become aware of how important they really are. This of course, is another “legacy issue”. King had been stalking Second  Rangers from in and around the time he was rejecting the CVA for 1^st Rangers. Some three  or four years. He saw the books at some point last year while discussing his investing in the old board. So to now be at a point where he needs time “to understand” their retail deals I find staggering.

There was no reason that the new board didn’t hit the ground running, they knew enough about the situation before they came in. The only reasons in my opinion for the Khrushchev strategy of blaming others for their misfortune, or evading problems with timely “new Dani Alves” squirrel sightings is they simply don’t have the financial resource to move the situation forward positively and are relying on the old boys network in the media and SFA to keep a harsh light being shone in their direction. This so far looks like its working.

On the credit side they have some how shifted 21 000 season tickets (though some online debate continues as to the accuracy of this figure) and made a managerial appointment that’s got the silly Billy’s all a flutter.

Warburton on paper looks a decent manager, leading Brentford to the play offs is a fine achievement, but he’s into his fifties and managed for about 100 games, took over at Brentford when the club had great systems already in place and a track record of doing well under the previous boss, a chairman who was investing heavily in all aspects of the club; in short, the opposite of everything in place at Ibrox, so time will tell on how he does.

Hearts showed last season that league can be won without throwing great amounts of money at it; perhaps they are cutting their cloth to live within their means. However with the club losing not far of a million pounds a month last season, even with a reduced wage bill for this season, given the loss of retail revenue I can’t see how the sums are adding up if they are using only ST monies.

Of course there is always Big Dave and his “soft investment” – hey stop laughing, and of course we Timmies don’t understand complicated things like making sure your club (sorry, holding company, we really don’t understand do we!!) isn’t liquidated so its not really for us to speculate, but the good ship Second  Rangers looks to be setting sail for what they hope will be the last leg of “The Journey” without having enough fuel aboard to complete “the Detour”.

As even Khrushchev discovered in the end you can only blame the previous guys for a certain amount of time, there comes a point when “ra peril” expect the new guys to have the answers. This day is drawing nearer for King & co and I m not certain they have the right answers.

But then, no-one is asking the right questions.