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Showing content with the highest reputation on 21/04/20 in all areas

  1. It's not about creating a private narrative, it is about reflecting what is true. A title awarded is not a title won. Not to challenge that narrative is to be complicit in the deceit. Whether the language I use establishes a wider narrative is irrelevant to me. What is important is what it true. Buying into and conceding that next season is about stopping 10IAR is to participate in the lie. We can choose to do so or not to do so. I am not prepared to do so.
    4 points
  2. I see the transfer thread has been bumped with rumours of multi-million pound signings. I think we need to get real and start to focus on the economic reality given the potential timescales on government restrictions being mentioned by some of the high Heid yins. We´ve been posting significant losses despite large ST numbers and good revenue from European football.. Mechandise revenue is severly hampered by costly ongoing and longterm litigation against someone who wants us to suffer. Commercial revenue is under threat because most business out there will have to recalibrate. Broadcast money, or the contract as currently is, must be under threat if there is no football and post Covid19, will the league be downsized (eg. some part-time clubs in top tier). Wage deferrals (rather than cuts) means more pain further down the road and less available for future budgets The budgets of most fans will change as disposible cash gets more scarce and priority for most won´t be football. Shareholders have been ploughing millions into the club for a number of years. How will their own business be affected by the economic carnage and could they not only continue but increase the amount of money essentially given to the football club? Same goes for any share issue. How does the new reality impact investment plans. As far as I know, Scottish football doesn´t have a League or Cup sponser and trying to find one now will mean lowering the number. If other provincial clubs suffer and some go part-time, will ambitious footballers want to play in Scotland. Nearly every sector of the economy in most parts of the world will be ripped apart as a pandemic lingers. Football isn´t going to get much sympathy. I´m no economist (and would be interested for the views of those whose expertise is relevant to this) but it seems to me as if the very best outcome would be severe downsizing in the short to medium term. Perhaps a good time for youth players getting an opportunity.
    3 points
  3. I can't understand why Rangers isn't already locking away the chequebook and taking every step possible to minimise cash outflow. More companies go to the wall in challenging times due to hesitation than the challenge itself. It's for situations like this that companies carry a cash reserve. Rangers, as far as I can see, has no reserve, other than soft loan commitments. Such commitments can no longer be guaranteed because every director whose wealth is founded on his business will also be under pressure. With no end in sight to current restrictions, what Rangers is effectively doing at the moment is bleeding cash. The danger is that, by the time it becomes clear how long it will be before income streams are flowing again, Rangers may be in existential difficulties. I have no insight into Rangers' operating finances but, if it were me, I'd be assuming no crowds (ST income) before (say) October and ruthlessly minimising outgoings between now and then, regardless of the emotional stuff about laying off staff. Any other strategy is irresponsible. I spent my business life in the oil industry, where there is a constant cycle of boom of bust and if you didn't make provisions for and react early to hard times, you likely went to the wall. Rangers don't normally operate in an environment like this and it worries me we may not have the required survival instincts. Far too much attention is being given to the SPFL and awarding titles. Of much greater concern to me is the condition Rangers could be in six months from now.
    3 points
  4. If this lockdown continues for another month, our economy will not recover for at least six years. Lets face it, the way the government is talking, this will not lift any time soon so we do need to brace ourselves for a very hard few years. We won't see the full impact of this for another 12-18 months though so it may be that businesses get back to some degree of normality for a while, but as the capital in companies dries up, and as the job losses begin, there will be the usual snowball effect you get in a depression. I've made no secret of the fact that I am in disbelief and horror at the approach the government is taking with this lockdown (and I know they're not alone), so they will carry the responsibility of killing businesses, lives and sport. I hope the club is working on plans to cut costs deeply if required. The next few years are about survival rather than anything else. I can't see the board being in a position to keep funding the club when their own businesses are coming under heavy pressure too. If ever we should be relieved to have an accountant like Robertson at the helm, it's now. I just hope he is a magician too though because we need more than one rabbit to be pulled out of the hat. One major thing we need to be working on is how to ensure that the club gets all the available funding from our own fans rather than allowing it to be diluted across the other clubs. Many of the other clubs will go out of business anyway so there's no point in the SPFL, SFA or governments stepping in to help them. It's just delaying the inevitable.
    3 points
  5. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what's going to happen with this season ending, next season starting and season ticket purchases before getting too analytical about the economic impact on Rangers FC. If Gerrard decides to keep playing Hagi wide, I think he'd be a bit of a waste of money. His ability to pick a cutting pass is exactly what we've been missing behind the striker(s).
    3 points
  6. We each have a binary choice, concede the ninth title to Celtic on its present terms or reject its validity. We will either endorse it or refute it through our use of language. Rangers fans talking in terms of stopping 10IAR are already vindicating the malfeasance of the SPFL.
    2 points
  7. Let's be quite open about this, there is not a remote chance of a 50,000 strong Ibrox crowd watching a Rangers match this calendar year. Until such time as a vaccine can be found, mass-produced, distributed and found to be working, can we take the chance as a country of allowing such mass congregation of spectators to watch a sporting event. The best estimate of this happening is 12-18 months. So there might be football back on tv before then, but not with full house crowds. So as a football club, and a business, that gets most of its annual income from such crowds, then the sooner we cut our costs accordingly, the better the chance we have of survival. There is not one player, coach, manager or administrator that is worth our club going bust for. Our non-staff overheads are also enormous at our club, for ongoing maintenance, insurances, etc, and with nothing coming in, these have to be managed. I have yet to hear that by furloughing a player, that gives them any wriggle room in their contract to leave for free. Obviously if it turns out that this would allow the player to leave for free (i.e. breach of contract), then this wouldn't work, but as far as I am concerned, we should be putting every single non-playing, non-income generating, member of staff on furlough and not topping up their wages, or if we can afford to , top them up to a reasonable level that would allow them to live. As for players, slash all wages until such times as they can undertake their work again. A lot of our players aren't even in the country, but we are continuing to pay them in full (dont give me any tosh about deferrals, that merely adds a debt to be repaid down the line), despite them not being able to go to work or to earn their wages. Furlough them all, take the longer term view and safeguard our future. If it turns out that somehow a vaccine is found sooner, and we dont have this gap in our income for as long as I am predicting, then we an make it up to them and repay the wages they have lost, or at least some of them. But the safety and long-term future of the club has to be our Director's first and only concern at this time. Players will come and players will go, the club has to be kept safe to ensure it is still there for us to enjoy in the decades to come.
    2 points
  8. In this the language we choose to use matters tremendously. Narratives become established only when those who are seeking to impose them succeed in defining the terms. It is significant that some Rangers fans are already speaking in terms of stopping 10IAR. That is an absolutely fatal mistake. Nothing can be conceded in even the smallest point of language by Rangers fans to this narrative. Let the rest of the world call it what they want, Rangers fans must continue to refer to is as nothing less than a title gifted through corruption and abuse of process. It will not be won, it will be awarded. No quarter can be given in this. The best antidote to narrative is truth. We have the truth on our side. Let them dissemble all they want, the facts will never change.
    2 points
  9. Right you can only pick one match I will go for our game back in 72 when we put an excellent Bayern Munich to the sword at Ibrox don't forget a lot of that Munich team went on to lift a world cup .
    1 point
  10. I remember turning to my son that day and telling him to savour every moment because it would never be as good as this again.
    1 point
  11. So many classics come to mind its hard to pick just one! I'm only considering games I was actually at. Florence is right up there, dont recall being as emotional at any other game as that one, tims at the piggery in 99, Leeds at Ibrox 92, Dolly at Ibrox 91, tims 02 cup final, tims SF win on pens, helicopter sunday, Leverkusen away in 98, Porto away in 04, Lyon away in 07, Lisbon away in 08, Braga away this year was superb also. Probably forgotten another couple of dozen I have been to as well.
    1 point
  12. Have said many times a domino effect could come in with collapse of a major club,but didn't think a virus would be the chance of the cause.
    1 point
  13. ^^^This 100%. I've said it a few times. This is about surviving now. The sooner businesses realise this, the better chance they have of getting through it. I doubt that many of the current football clubs will still exist in 5 years. The most at risk are those larger clubs, especially in England, Italy, Spain and France.
    1 point
  14. Not only did they beat the 11 other teams, they also beat a global pandemic and the Masonic SPFL. Probably the greatest sporting achievement since Rocky Balboa beat Apollo Creed in Rocky II.
    1 point
  15. I think you have it wrong this title number nine will be the best they have ever achieved in their history they will drum I fo the idiots out there that they were so good they didn't even have to finish the season to put the rest to the sword they will be sticking it up our fans for the next century.
    1 point
  16. Yeah, but that would require a sanity that quite simply isn't there.
    1 point
  17. Funnily enough we have plenty of precedents, albeit the cause (in this case a 'disease) is different. It is scary and what bothers me is that the government continue to insist that they're listening to their medical advisers. That's crazy. They can only give one side of the issue to the government but history tells us that far more deaths occur in depressions and in poorer economies than this disease can ever cause. I could give you those numbers but they are very frightening so I'll refrain from that on here. One additional thing w are beginning to see also is a sharp decline in the value of certain stocks. This lockdown has shown how vulnerable certain businesses are and as a result their intrinsic value will be lowered to reflect that. This means that pension funds and other investments will be widely affected too. The long term effects of this lockdown are way greater than the threat of the disease. Rangers must tap into its supporters better. I don't know how much room there is to manoeuvre on Rangers TV so that we can show all away domestic games on that platform. We need to look at all avenues of income.
    1 point
  18. When will football be back up and running? Will there be social distancing within the stadium, which will have a major impact on crowds and season ticket sales? 2 unknowns and a difficult situation for the club. I'd be stunned if the club do buy Hagi. Surely we don't have the cash for that. The current crisis is a game changer and we will have to watch every penny, particularly as we have little cash coming in but over £1m/month flowing out and then a big bump in July when we have to pay the deferred salaries. As you say, Buster, it's a scary time.
    1 point
  19. For us, yes, we can speculate like we do for the football side but ultimately of course, it´s wait and see. However, the boardroom and club financial planners can´t. I´d be interested to see what the finance experts amongst us have to say on this. @Bluedell @Bill @craig (the BBC!!). Ann Budge came in for a lot of criticism when she moved quickly to cut costs but IMO whilst her calls on the football side have occasionally been dubious, she was right to take immediate measures on this. We´ve already had a debate of sorts regards Deferrals v Cuts....but that initial decision has already been taken and the revised numbers could be fed into any future analysis. As for Hagi, I don´t think it would be wise to commit the 4 or 5 million sterling at this point in time. You could say, sell X and Y, raise the money and spend but transfer values have just been diluted and it appears the proposed fee for Hagi is fixed. Good time to get Saudi owners in (I doubt the price of oil will stay where it currently is). Could we use Auchenhowie to store millions of barrels of crude to sell at a later date ?
    1 point
  20. Probably best if we start off by spending 5 million pounds on Ianis Hagi. I'm not sure how to spend the rest of the war chest. How about the rest of you?
    1 point
  21. Leanne Dempsy resigns from the SPFL League Reconstruction working group......
    1 point
  22. Robert Mugabe would have been proud of the recent SPFL voting process
    1 point
  23. Hard to choose between Bayern and Juve. Bayern because of what it led to.
    1 point
  24. Winning the league at their midden in 1999, while they totally humiliated themselves both on and off the pitch.
    1 point
  25. Has to be this one for me. Sitting on the wooden bench in the centenary stand and beating Juventos 2-0 in 1978, a team containing most of the Italian national team.
    1 point
  26. It has to be second leg against Bayern Munich in 1972. What a team, what a support. The sheer scale of an 80,000 crowd, the scale of the opposition, the revenge for 1967. Haven't seen anything like it since. 48 years ago yesterday.
    1 point
  27. 1987 - Kiev at Ibrox. The atmosphere was amazing that night, and a great result.
    1 point
  28. All partisanship aside, wrt corporate goverence, this really stinks and like a dead thing on a public street, with every passing day the smell gets stronger. The sound of SPFL silence might be broken with Doncaster currently shouting down a phone line ! That salary ain´t looking very safe.
    1 point
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