calscot

I think there can be some compatibility between a war chest, increased ticket prices and running the club prudently. In any business you take over it is prudent to invest immediately in the infrastructure and staff. If you bought a run down restaurant you'd refurnish and redecorate, put in a new kitchen, and bring in the standard of staff that you need for the level of food and service you want to provide. At the same time you'd plausibly put up the prices - and in the long run you'd want to be making a profit and so run a tight ship that doesn't leak money. The initial investment is considered part of the "purchase price" and shouldn't need repeating for a long time - especially not every year. You'd just put aside money from the income the restaurant makes for maintenance and staff turnover. A solid Rangers FC is obviously worth more than £8.5m, otherwise there would be a huge queue to buy - however, it's likely to take more than double that to make Rangers solid and sustainable. 20 investors at £1.2m sounds like it adds up to about £24m but that's just speculative arithmetic. I would be disappointed if any new owner who paid such a low price for the club, didn't invest and I would be sceptical of them bringing decent money in and getting the club running efficiently if they didn't. Would you buy a shabby restaurant which is making a loss and then do nothing different? Just put the prices up for the same old fare by the same old staff, in the same old shabby surroundings? That's a recipe for bankruptcy. I think there will be investment but not stratospheric - more like the ilk we've seen in the last five years. Maybe up to £8m in a one off boost to the squad plus some renewals of contracts - most importantly Aluko's. I think we should be more worried if their is talk of NO investment, which could spell another disaster for the club.

I've no problem with this and it's the right thing to do if the SFA can keep confidentiality. However, it smacks of pettiness after the demands that the committee who judged Rangers be revealed. If he's so into openness why were their names kept secret? It's fair enough that they revealed the names for the appeal and so can ask for names from Rangers in return - but it still smacks of pettiness rather than looking after Scottish football. Regan now seems to be doing the right things but for the wrong and ego related reasons.

Seems to me that Green will have to offer more in a CVA than for a newco to make it attractive. Some companies may also not like the publicity of putting us out of business when they will not gain anything by it. It's not good business for them.

As Celtic also had EBT's albeit a much lesser extent - if we are hammered, won't they be also?

McCoist has accumulated 83 points despite the horrendous off field problems that obviously got to the players. That's 2 points below the average of the previous twelve years since the 12 team league began. People hark back to the Advocaat years but in his last three years he actually averaged 84 points with one season at 82. PLG supposedly needed and deserved more time but that season ended up with us having 72 points despite a strong second half from Walter. Alliy's beaten that even with a 10 point penalty! However, you have to also give him mitigation - the 3 points from 12 in the 4 games right after going into administration was obviously an anomaly due to the exceptional circumstances and if you take the rest of our results for the season and extrapolate them, the expectation value would have been 9.4 points. Even at 9 that would put him at 89 points - well above average and better than some championship winning teams - DESPITE all the rest of the crap he and his squad had to deal with. I can't see how anyone can slate McCoist's record in the league this season and although the cup runs were awful, you have to look at the circumstances. I think Ally has categorically shown he's not a bad manager as his league record shows during the most trying season in our history. He hasn't shown he's great but he's eclipsed the likes of Dick, Eck and PLG who had a fraction of his troubles to face. At the very least, he deserves to show what he can do in when the ship is steady. If a guy can be average in tough times, what will he be like when times are good?

How realistic is his offer? Could just be answering a tricky question with some emotional attachment but not actually serious about playing for us. Or he may want to play for us in ideal circumstances - ie if we were not in financial crisis and had guaranteed European football to look forward to. On the flip side you've got to wonder what he's got left in the tank - Celtic have recently had a few famous names at the edge of retirement, and they have been a complete waste of money and a bit of an embarrassment really. However, player/assistant manager could be an attractive option...

Football is a risky business where you can see you're investment dwindle to pretty much zero value - just ask Dave King. A million quid is a big investment for even rich people. IMHO you'd have to be worth at least ten million for it to be even a little bit affordable. I'm not sure how much I'm worth as l'm the usual work for a living person so all my wealth is probably in the equity of my house, but I know I wouldn't be able to risk 10% of it to invest in Rangers right now. However, the more you have the more expendable it is I suppose. So ten to twenty multimillionaires investing over a million each seems a realistic way to go for me and not to be sniffed at. I still get the impression that the BK's were looking to something similar to Whyte in that they wanted the club for virtually nothing and then let the fans pay for everything - this time initially through a share issue. I can't help but think that a £15M share sale to the fans would generate at least 75% of the invested money but the fans would get about 25% ownership in return. Bit of a rip off. Then a lot of stuff that is supposed to be included in the debt would probably still be paid out of ticket sales ie the fans would pay and then pay again while the BK's would own and control the club for very little investment. I know nothing about Green and his consortium and I'm a bit nervous of them; however, at least they seem to be putting a modest and realistic amount of their own money into the club. Not something the BK's can claim.

I take it the £27m total comes from the interest charged? Reports say they lent £24m and have been paid £3m and £5m back. I make that £16m owed plus interest. I think the biggest problem from the start with Ticketus is that the charge for credit was far too great and the repayment time far too short. Reminds me of Wonga.com who seem to be legalised loan sharks. But the point is, we were never going to be able to afford to repay it under their terms and surely they should have seen that before they lent the money?

You have the benefit over me there. For me, I will debate any part of it. Could you possibly be more specific - which part has come from D&P? I'll recap: I gave you several reasons why TBK have not made a good impression on me and possibly others. You said all my reasons are based on lies from D&P. Could you enlighten me as to what these lies are? You never know, that knowledge could change my viewpoint on TBK. I don't mean to be picky but I don't quite understand the clause, "what there bid have been".

Could you run me through their bid as well. I don't seem to have retained the information either...

So how much money to TBK have? First they wanted to use Ticketus money, then they brought a very rich Kennedy on board and then still put in a £5m bid compared to Miller's £11.2m. TBK may have lots of money but it's not the impression they are giving to most. What they really need to do is show us the money... as well as a decent plan and the gumption to follow it.

Come on, you can't say that without backing up your own claims...

Care to expand?

Eh, what division?

I would be surprised if Whyte has the means to pay £27m - well that isn't hidden and unobtainable. I don't have any sympathy at all for Ticketus - if what they did wasn't illegal, IMHO it should be. Perhaps if they get totally shafted, it will help prevent nefarious takeovers of other clubs.

I'm sorry but this is why I hate non-grammatical language on a discussion/debating forum. I really don't understand your first sentence... I can only guess you mean, "So your impression is based on D&P lies?" And I'll just have to take it from there... But I still don't get what lies that I assume you are talking about. If what I said was lies then you're implying the reality must be the opposite which is: TBK have bought the club They weren't with Ticketus and now they are They were never with Kennedy They put in a high bid They have pots of money and have had a well defined, highly motivated plan from the start So if I've based my impression on lies then it must be almost everybody is lying and TBK completed the smooth takeover of the club ages ago... Is that what you're saying?

I think it's mostly due to the fact they've been around for a long time now, and seemed to have achieved little more than the joke offers of something like a packet of nuts. They're in with Ticketus, then they're not, then they're in with Kennedy but put in a ridiculously low bid and are rejected, now where are they? My impression is that they lack either enough money, enough nous, enough will or a combination of all three. They've hardly portrayed themselves as serious contenders... But then maybe they are playing some long game and will get the job done - but they've still made their impression which can stick.

And I have to laugh at the superciliousness in your post... No doubt I'm confused as you replied to me with very little clarity, lots of ambiguity and left a lot of questions unanswered - as does your last one. You may or may not be right but to suggest what you say is common knowledge is disingenuous at best. And perhaps I'm as naive as your average judge... You may be right but why then was it reported as £200k? It might not take an Einstein to work out that it's a fact that Craig Whyte doesn't pay any bills whatsoever but it would take a pretty incredible amount of investigation. Or are you just boasting of facts and knowledge that is merely your own assumption? It doesn't take an Einstein and it's so obvious and yet you haven't named who did pay - which any fool can see would help your explanation. I take it that is does take an Einstein to name who paid? So why didn't the courts see through this if it is so obvious? You seem to pat yourself of the back for so much knowledge but you don't seem so good at explaining it to lesser mortals. You know, business is a dull, dull subject for most; just because we're not all at anorak level does not mean we're stupid. We just seek decent and clear explanations from those who are in a position to give it - without the condescension, please.

It was reported that CW's due diligence cost about £200k - now you're saying it was £500k and someone else paid it. Who paid it then? Ticketus? Very strange. I'd be very surprised if Duff and Phelps performed it as it would look very dodgy that they were subsequently installed as administrators a year later. Who are MCR and why would they perform due diligence for Craig Whyte's take over with D&P? Just what are you suggesting? It really doesn't make a lot of sense to me...

Many members have - and so are no longer members.

As I've said before, it seems to me that if you take the BTC from the equation, before Whyte came in, the club was financially steady and with very tight control over costs and spending, was able to service and reduce its debts pretty admirably. However, the huge iceberg that is the BTC loomed on the horizon and with SDM's companies struggling and Lloyds making huge losses and trying to protect their position, both wanted to jump ship fast. In comes Whyte with a solution that makes him money and gets the club off the BTC hook. However, it seems to me that to protect his interests and not invest or lose any of his own money, Whyte has made several decisions that have hugely negative implications and are making the completion of the resuscitation of the club problematic. Whyte's biggest problem is that if he paid off Lloyds with his own money and invested in the club, then if we lost the tax case and went into administration, he could potentially lose all that money. He would have a risk exposed for something like £30m. So he brings in Ticketus and Close and then uses tax money as cash flow thereby giving him a low exposure which would amount to his expenses in taking over the club - eg due diligence which reputedly cost £200k. However, with the length of time that everything is taking, it's all going a bit pear shaped and with payments to Ticketus and lack of European football, plus home cup games led to a shortfall for the season. This meant the administrators had to negotiate with the players about their wages but as they will never do something for nothing, they now have clauses in their contracts to allow them to leave for cheap in the summer which combined with a transfer embargo from the SFA could seriously affect the club's ability to compete and thus affect the future attendances and therefore income. Add in a plethora of unknown sanctions from the SPL and SFA for a number of different aspects and scenarios and you have a bit of a clusterfuck on your hands. So with the rest of the takeover shenanigans we've gone from a structurally sound vessel heading for an iceberg, to one that is full of large holes, is structurally very weak, has a U-boat aiming torpedoes at it and could easily sink before the iceberg is even reached. It seems to me that Whyte's plan has gone awry and like the Titanic we'd have been better ploughing on and smacking straight into the iceberg (a documentary showed that the Titanic would have easily survived this scenario albeit with a hell of a lot of damage to the bow). So while that would have been repairable, the trouble we now have is that it's very hard to sell a sinking ship - even if you can replace it with another one, that ends up becoming an expensive and difficult option. It seems like Whyte has inadvertently scuttled us and so we're not an attractive proposition for buyers right now - and the trouble is, he still wants his coin...

You don't seem to be listening to what is being said and you're taking things out of context. You can't be expected to be taken seriously when you question other bids without providing the answers to the same questions for the bid for which you are "on the inside." Either answer those same questions or don't publicly ask them of others. Pretty obvious to me.

The bill was conceded and Whyte agreed to pay it - which was his argument to acquire the club for £1, but then he never paid it. I think that's why the tax bill that put us in administration was £13m - £4m WTC and £9 unpaid PAYE and VAT... Could be wrong though. Seems to me that the WTC may not have been set up in a way that could be defended robustly (something in their contracts?) whereas the rest were.

The weird thing is that so many clubs seem to want draconian measures when surely the same sanctions will apply to any of them should they get into trouble. And ironically with sanctions against Rangers it becomes more likely something will go wrong for one or two of them. Not only that, there are obviously many skeletons in the cupboards across all football clubs and quite a few board members who could be accused of bringing the game into disrepute who have yet to be punished. I still fail to see the heinous crime that Rangers have committed - a few misdemeanours perpetrated by unpopular owners of the club but not quite any felonies. In fact the biggest problem has been the heavy handed action by another body (HMRC) before they have even found the club guilty of anything. At worst, an owner of Rangers has been overconfident in a tax dodge for wages that he thought would be fine. It's the motoring equivalent of picking up a bunch of parking fines when the driver thought he would get away with the slightly dodgy parking that everyone else was doing. The problem with the disproportionate and incredibly late response by the authorities led the club being passed to someone who had no shame in doing the dirtiest of tricks to remove the fines from the club and make a tidy sum for himself. It seems to me that it was HMRC who created the circumstances that delivered us Whyte and then paid the price for him - making us all suffer at the same time, and the SFA then punish us further for their own dereliction of duty! With the crimes and circumstances which created them put together by two former owners, a bunch of accountants, HMRC and the SFA - why is there a witch hunt against the club which itself has had no real part to play - along with the long suffering fans? Just who are they trying to severely punish? And for what? Should we severely punish hospitals, make them impossible to run properly and allow the patients to suffer greatly, because some dodgy administrator commits insurance fraud? And that's a real crime too which results in a long jail sentence. The other weird thing is the SFA punishing Rangers with a sentence length, which is longer than the length of time the guilty party spent in charge of the club. Scottish football is not in great health, but instead of looking after each other with solidarity, the result is the clubs and officials acting like hens at a pecking party...

They've almost gone out of business once in the 90's but I don't recall many Rangers fans putting the boot in at the time and trying to nail the coffin down. They may have been a bit of laughing up sleeves but I don't remember their level of active hatred - and even though they were nothing special for the league at the time as they were regularly finishing fourth or fifth and their fans had deserted them, I don't remember many bears actually demanding either their demise or relegation. I really think most would have preferred if they survived.