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  1. Thisis lifted from FF thread on a DR story running today re Paul Murray and the AGM, from someone who has read that story, emboldment mine: ============== "Christian Purslow still lined up to be new chief executive. New financial director is in place but no names are revealed. Murray stating he has a team ready to go to work. Murray and Mccoll's legal team have also secured the identities of the figures behind Blue pitch Holdings and Margarita Holdings, they will be revealed by tomorrow. ===============
  2. BOARD OF RANGERS FC 1 #SACKTHEBOARD# 0 For those of us in the neutral enclosure, sitting atop a fence rather than allying with any particular faction, the weekend scoreline came as something of a shock result. A very much under strength Rangers Board managed to pull off a shock victory against their bitter rivals - #sacktheboard# The result was made all the more remarkable considering the Rangers board have “Toxic Jack” in the squad, a man whose propensity this season to cite Paul McConville and Andy Muirhead to support his arguments make him firm favourite for the “Own Goal Of The Season” award. But in what to date, has been a very ugly and bruising contest, the Rangers Board emerged as Saturdays victors with lone striker Sandy Easdale netting the winner with the following display of intricate mouthwork : “I have no desire to criticise any individual or group and believe the constant tit for tat that we have seen recently is damaging the club” Hallelujah !!! To borrow a well known beer commercial’s slogan.....”If only all statements were made this way” Many of us in the undecided camp are growing weary of the predictable tactics which make the long ball up the middle look like an intricate maze of passes taken from the drawing board. Unsubstantiated allegations based on little more than rumour and scaremongering – if you have evidence or the truth is it really too much to ask you share it with the rest of the Rangers support so that we can make informed choices ? The citing of bloggers who yesterday you ridiculed as having a lack of credibility but today you are championing because their argument suits yours – only demeans your own credibility The citing of well known anti-Rangers contributors to support your particular argument – need I say more ? Careful where you sow those magical beans Jack. The new forum user whose entire posting history is to provide links to journalists who support his/her argument. But perhaps worst of all is the level of personal vitriol being exchanged between Bears as freely as Barcelona exchange passes. As if it’s not bad enough one bloggers wife being brought into the fray, some even felt the Daily Record publishing a photo of our director’s house was justified. Furthermore it’s difficult to afford people victim status when they themselves are engaging in the type of conduct they are complaining about – in this regard the word “hypocritical” jumps out at me way before “snake oiled salesman” or “Thief”. But seeing as Tom English enlightened us all at the weekend with some parody perhaps it’s fitting we end on that note. Speaking to Easdale post match it was clear he had a point to prove. “I was delighted to get that winner. All week Chuck [Charles Green] has been winding me up, waving his honorary RST membership in front of me and declaring..." “Hey Sandy lad, have you got one of these babies yet?”
  3. Statement on behalf of the Rangers Supporters Association, Rangers Supporters Assembly and the Rangers Supporters Trust. The events of the past week have caused further anxiety among Rangers fans and we now call upon the club and their advisers, Daniel Stewart, to clarify a few matters as quickly as possible. The next few weeks are a critical period for us all and, after what we've been through, we need some measure of reassurance that there will be stability soon. Firstly, when will the club AGM be held? The delay resulting from the Court of Session ruling last Monday followed by the resignations of Craig Mather and Brian Smart leaves the current Board of Directors extremely vulnerable. Whilst we welcome the words of reassurance from Brian Stockbridge that the club's finances are stable and operations will continue as normal, we feel it is imperative that the AGM is convened as a matter of urgency. Secondly, given the level of concern among fans regarding the ownership and finances of the club over the recent past, and the various investigations that have been undertaken, we feel it is vitally important that the individuals that are behind both Blue Pitch Holdings and Margarita Holdings are made known to remove any doubt that there are connections to either Craig Whyte, Imran Ahmed or Charles Green. Both Walter Smith and Ally McCoist have spoken of the need to "cleanse" the club of all the rumour, speculation and innuendo. The identity of the individuals behind these two shareholder groups is a significant part of that "cleansing" process. Thirdly, we call upon the Easdale brothers to clarify their position going forward. They are now in a prominent position both in terms of their shareholding and influence on the Board and it is important that fans understand their view of the future structure of the Board and the running of the club. The club has adopted a very defensive position recently in efforts to rebuff allegations and clarify misinformation. Now is the time to take a positive stance and provide the fans with the clarity and factual information we request and to take the lead in shaping the way forward.
  4. ON the advice of police, Brian Stockbridge, the Rangers finance director, has had to improve the security system at his family home following a photograph of the property being published on the front page of a newspaper on Friday. Police went to his home and installed “what can be legitimately called a panic button” according to a person familiar with the story. Stockbridge has come in for heavy criticism over the way he has managed Rangers’ finances and incurred the wrath of the fans when videoing Malcolm Murray when the former chairman was under the influence of alcohol. Much of the flak has been par for the course for an executive in his position, but lately there has been a number of more objectionable threats made online and the publication of a picture of his distinctive home alerted the police to a possible risk to his safety and the safety of his family. On various supporters’ websites there was anger over Stockbridge purchasing the house with the help of a £200,000 bonus awarded to him when Rangers won the Third Division title. The house was purchased a year before, however. Stockbridge has resisted calls to resign, but protests are ongoing. Stockbridge and James Easdale are the only remaining directors on the plc board following the recent departures of Ian Hart, Bryan Smart and Craig Mather. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/rangers-brian-stockbridge-improves-home-security-1-3148990
  5. We are under investigation from glasgows finest as to armed forces day daily record page seven the police report is now complete amazing the speed of the investigation when you think that the same police are dragging their heels into those who wronged our club .
  6. Toyed with the idea of writing a 'match' preview for this but we'll just go for the thread instead. Case opened at 10am but has been adjourned until 11 so lawyers for Rangers can read over a late submission from the Requisitioner who seek to have an open vote at the AGM on current and nominated board members.
  7. If you were constructing a gallery of guilty men at Rangers then you’d want to make sure your walls are supported by reinforced steel, such is the weight of numbers you’d be hanging up there. Walter Smith has pretty much stood alone as the good guy in all of this. ‘In Walter We Trust’ as some Rangers supporters might put it. It’s hard not to respect and like the former Ibrox manager given all that he has done in the game, but it’s possible to hold him in high esteem while at the same time pointing out the fallacy that he is blameless in the spectacular mess that his club has become. In the deconstruction of the Rangers story you’d point the finger at plenty of guys *before you’d have Smith in your sights, but the fact is that he has played his own part in the *malaise. He possesses none of the spiv-ish nature of some of the chancers who have come and gone at Ibrox, but he still warrants criticism. It didn’t come across in his interviews on Tuesday, but Smith is no innocent bystander in all of this. We go back to last summer and a tabloid headline that read ‘Walter’s Heartbreak’ above a story that told of Smith’s failed bid to take control of Rangers in June 2012. To talk of his heartbreak was a little kind given that the bid failed partly because, as Malcolm Murray subsequently pointed out, there was actually no formal bid – he called it empty posturing – and partly because even if there was a bid it was too little, too late. By the time Smith, Jim McColl and Douglas Park mounted their white steeds and galloped over the horizon in Govan, calling on Charles Green to “step aside” in the interests of Rangers, Green had already secured the business and assets for a song. What took them so long? Where had they been? They made no secret of their concern about the motivation of Green and his group. They were spot-on there. So why wait until Green had done the deal before appearing on the scene? On these pages in the past I equated their action to somebody busting in on a funeral with a defibrillator. Smith asked Green to step aside in the interests of Rangers. Appealing to his sense of fair play wasn’t going to change the course of events. The one thing that Green would have listened to was an offer. Money doesn’t talk to Green, it hollers like a banshee. Smith’s group had the financial clout to get the Yorkshireman off the scene and they didn’t deliver. They spoke openly of their serious reservations about Green’s mysterious group but didn’t do what needed to be done. We could talk about Smith’s axis of excess with David Murray back in the day when Rangers thought they had money when in actual fact what they had was credit and iffy tax schemes, which eventually came back to trouble them and helped cause the spectacular implosion. More recent events show that the hubris of the 1990s and early 2000s hasn’t been fully purged. Smith was right to be anxious about Green. For months, Green attempted to get him on board and was getting nowhere. Getting Ally McCoist’s imprimatur was incredibly valuable to Green and the chances are that his regime would not have got off the ground had McCoist stayed true to his own initial feelings about the Yorkshireman, but he didn’t. The endorsement of McCoist helped shift season tickets and helped endear Green to the Ibrox faithful after an early and bitter stand-off with the supporters, featuring a death threat. Getting McCoist on side – publicly at any rate – was good, but getting Smith to join him was equally important given the IPO last December. In November, Walter jumped into bed with Green. They shook hands and smiled for the cameras. One big happy *family again. Smith became a non-*executive director. The veneer of calmness was what Green was looking for and thanks to two Rangers icons, he got it. Both men would have been better advised to stick to their original positions on Green and his cohorts. By changing their minds, they played their own part in facilitating the embarrassment that followed. It can’t have been that much of a surprise, given how dubious they were about Green in the first place. Smith became chairman last June, not because he wanted to but because he felt he had to in the wake of the in-fighting at Ibrox, the dysfunctionality of the board as he later described it. It was to his credit that he moved into a position that he had no experience of. He knew he lacked the tools but, equally, he vowed that he would be as hands-on as he could possibly be. “No-one should believe that I see my role as a passive one,” he said. “That hasn’t been my way in the past and it won’t be my way in the future.” Encouraging words for the Rangers fans who craved authority and order at the top of the club, but it’s easy to see how Smith was virtually powerless in that bonkers regime of Green’s. You can’t blame him for walking away from the civil war. But some of the things he said on Tuesday jar a little all the same. His comments on the financial waste at Ibrox, under his watch in part, demanded explanation. “I knew they [Rangers] would make a loss [for the financial year ended 30 June] but I wasn’t sure exactly what it would be. It was quite a surprise when it came out to be such a large figure.” Quite a surprise? Smith was chairman for the end of that period. Did he ask questions about the financial state of the club while he was there? Did he get answers? Were the answers truthful? If yes, why was he then surprised when the accounts revealed such a massive cash-burn? If no, then did he feel people inside the club had lied to him? Smith was chairman. He should have known, shouldn’t he? Having the business savvy to be able to do something about the obscene bonuses being dished out would have been a different matter entirely, but as chairman he should have known. Unless he was a passive chairman, which he said he wouldn’t be. On the football side of it, it’s pretty clear that Smith had no issue with McCoist earning £825,000 a year. Also, he has said that giving a player a wage of £7,500 a week (Ian Black, for one) while in the Third Division was not such a big deal. Presumably he had no truck with other deals, like the one given to Fran Sandaza that would have seen the Spaniard’s salary rise to £10,000 a week in the final year of his contract. The overall wage bill in the Third Division was £7.8 million. Smith said: “People come out and say ‘Ah, it’s not necessary for them to have those players in that division’. But it’s not just the division that matters at Rangers, it’s the fact that you have 45,000 people coming to watch something on a football pitch…They are still losing money. But when you make a decision to be involved at Rangers, there is no common sense to it. The financial bit of Rangers Football Club and common sense don’t often go together.” That’s a remarkable statement when you think about it. What is wrong with Rangers attempting some common sense in their spending? Why be so accepting of a lack of common sense? It didn’t have to be that way. There is no law – apart from the law of hubris – that says Rangers have to lack common sense in their finances. This is the 2013 version of David Murray’s freakonomics. ‘We are Rangers and we’ll spend what we like’. Either through arrogance or stupidity – or both – that mindset hasn’t changed all that much despite the torment. What would have been so wrong with offering Black £3,000 a week instead of £7,500? What would have been the problem had McCoist been put on £400,000 from the point of administration instead of continuing on £825,000? Why is the wage bill so eye-wateringly high for a club in the Third Division? Because there is no common sense at Rangers, says Smith. Instead of just accepting it, how about doing something about it? Incredibly, it wouldn’t appear that the penny has dropped yet. The former manager deserves all the respect for what he achieved in the game, but in the on-going crisis at Ibrox, he is not blame-free. Rangers are still stuck in a financial time-warp. And many people have allowed it to happen.
  8. ................. the team is the priority. By Kheredine Idessane BBC Scotland The 65-year-old, who stepped down as chairman two months ago, said there is "an obvious suspicion" that is not presently the case. Smith believes the Ibrox club has to "get rid of the boardroom turmoil" and "settle down" if Rangers are to look forward and find a "normal path". He was also surprised by the loss of £14m in the club's recent accounts. "I knew they would make a loss but I wasn't quite sure just exactly what it would be so that was quite a surprise when it came out to be such a large figure," said Smith, who won 21 trophies during his two spells as manager. "It used to be that the wages of the footballing side used to be the major problem in clubs' finances but that's been cut down fairly dramatically from when I was there." A group of shareholders are trying to force changes on the Rangers board at the upcoming AGM, with the increasingly bitter feud reaching the Court of Session. When stepping down from his short-lived spell as chairman, Smith referred to a "highly-dysfunctional environment" at board level. He also voiced support for those hoping to join the board, although he stated that chief executive Craig Mather was doing a good job and hoped he would be able to continue. "Like everybody else, you just get frustrated that nothing seems to be settling down at the club," explained Smith. "They still have a fair amount of turmoil in the background. "Like everyone else, I don't think that the club can really look forward until that's erased. "There's the obvious suspicion that the club isn't the main reason why people are running the club at the present moment. "After the AGM, if we get back to the fact that Rangers are a football club and it should be run for the football club and for the football team. I think that that would be a massive step." Smith, who had current Ibrox boss Ally McCoist as assistant between 2007 and 2011, insists establishing confidence in the board is vital for the club, who are top of Scottish League One having won all their league matches so far. "I don't think there's a great deal of turmoil in the current board," he added. "There's turmoil being created because a lot of people want to see a change on that board. "That, I think, is the main crux of the problem at the present moment. The football aspect of Rangers is going as you'd expect it to go for a big club down in the lower divisions. "They're back on track, they're playing some good football but we still have this problem surrounding the board. I don't think the club can get back to being a settled club until that is eventually settled. "If you're looking at the job that the manager's doing at the present moment, who could complain about that?"
  9. IF THERE is a pyramid of anxieties among Rangers fans in the wake of the publication of the club’s financial position, it will surely be topped by the dread that the new company which arose from the old last year will topple back into the abyss. Such an eventuality has been deemed in some quarters to be unlikely to the point of impossibility, but, since the voices of “reassurance” have come mainly from inside the Ibrox boardroom and other parties with vested interests, the natural retort to the claims would be a sceptical “they would say that, wouldn’t they?”. In the matter of drawing optimism from audited accounts which appear to confirm a level of pillaging that would have shamed the Vikings, the chief executive, Craig Mather, has tended to offer the least convincing case since Richard Nixon told the American people that “there can be no whitewash in the White House”. Mather’s most insistent defence against accusations of financial profligacy on an almost crippling scale has become something of a mantra: “We have money in the bank and we are debt-free.” This would be considerably more impressive if Rangers were debt-free by choice rather than necessity, the result of their recent history of collapse that left creditors of every size owed millions. With no credit line available, the club will be operating on a pay-as-you-go basis, thereby necessitating regular recourse to their “savings”. Since the latest balance sheet includes the great bulk of the season-ticket money for the present campaign, it seems legitimate to infer that withdrawals at the bank continue to exceed deposits. In this regard, the worry lurking one level below the fear of another administration will derive from the realisation that the figures released this week are already out of date. Since the accounts reach only until the end of June and costs have had to be met in the three full months since, it is reasonable to assume that the balance at the bank is appreciably less than the £11 million reported by the auditors. In the circumstances, it was hardly shocking to hear the testimony of a football finance specialist that, without a significant improvement in their revenues, Rangers will run out of money by the middle of next season. But anyone who takes a dispassionate view of the figures will surely concede that Mather and his directorial team are entitled to emphasise that the alarming £14m loss recorded last year was due in no small measure to a substantial number of non-recurring expenses and that the seemingly devastating figures contained in the audit are, in relation to the coming months, at least partly artificial. Mather, by and large, did not make enough of this aspect of the club’s finances and its potential impact on future trading. It is possible, of course, that he did not wish to draw attention to the ludicrous amounts of money paid to executives such as Charles Green (almost £1m) and Brian Stockbridge (more than £400,000) and the astonishing £825,000 salary of the manager, Ally McCoist. McCoist’s earnings could be considered perverse merely in the context of the club’s economic devastation over the past three years, but, from a purely footballing angle, it is an irresponsible reward for someone with no managerial experience operating in the fourth tier of Scottish football. His wages are nearly two-and-a-half times the £350,000 paid to Alex McLeish by the then owner, David Murray, in 2001. It was only when McLeish won the treble in 2003, at the end of his first full season, that he received an appropriate increase. The present manager’s income becomes absurd when it is set beside the club’s total annual turnover of £19m. To lend that ratio some kind of perspective, Manchester United would have to pay their new manager, David Moyes, almost £16m per annum. United’s recently declared record revenue of £365m means that they require a mere 19 days to match Rangers’ yearly “take”. Despite the hair-raising anomaly, McCoist and Stockbridge have attracted plaudits from some for agreeing, respectively, to take a wage cut and waive directorial bonuses that were already scandalous. It is rather like praising someone for not robbing a bank. King of cool Guardiola can land third crown In his new incarnation as a co-commentator for Sky Sports, Gary Neville frequently gives glimpses of the astuteness and articulacy that made him, as a player, Manchester United’s resident barrack-room lawyer. Rarely stuck for the telling phrase, the former England full-back had a ready riposte to colleague Martin Tyler’s observation on how cool Pep Guardiola appeared as his Bayern Munich strode imperiously around the Etihad Stadium, wiping the floor with the often formidable Manchester City as they went. “I’d be cool too, if I’d been given the jobs he has,” said Neville, an allusion to the suave Spaniard’s present employment and his previous post as manager of Barcelona. With two Champions League triumphs already on his cv from four years with Barca, Guardiola is an understandably short-priced favourite to collect a third with a side that looks much more comprehensively equipped than the one he left in Catalonia. Manchester City’s volatility – capable, in the space of a few weeks, of losing to Cardiff City and Aston Villa, while contemptuously dismissing neighbours United with a 4-1 hammering at Old Trafford that could have been even more emphatic – could make Bayern’s apparently breathtaking form unreliable. But City are clearly the kind of team who require to be stimulated by the occasion to produce their best, and there is little doubt they were taking Wednesday’s collision seriously. But Bayern, virtually unchallengeable all over the field, already hold the European title, and appear capable of matching, or even surpassing, their Franz Beckenbauer-inspired, three-in-a-row predecessors from the mid-1970s. http://www.scotsman.com/news/glenn-gibbons-rangers-financial-position-1-3127365
  10. Neil Doncaster has stressed that he remains comfortable with the situation where the Scottish Professional Football League is still to find a title sponsor as the season enters its first break for international matches. The new league set-up has been in operation for more than a month, and the reconstruction was formally completed at the end of June. The fact that the SPFL continues with no title sponsor has provoked concern in some circles. Doncaster again insisted that it is not a significant problem. He also played down yesterday the extent to which finance from a title sponsor impacts on clubs when compared to revenue brought in from broadcasting deals already in place. The chief executive pointed out that he is content to take his time “to find the right sponsor, rather than the first one that comes along”. The recent controversy surrounding Wonga’s sponsorship of Newcastle United, which led to striker Papiss Cisse briefly threatening to refuse to wear a shirt promoting a payday lender, highlighted how an association with certain brands can lead to problems. Doncaster wants a sponsor that enhances the image of professional football in Scotland. “It’s clearly important that we get the right sponsor rather than do something quickly,” said Doncaster, before adding that “we shouldn’t get carried away” with the notion that the financial guarantees from having a title sponsor in place would transform the Scottish game. The deal the Clydesdale Bank struck was worth £8 million a year to the Scottish Premier League when originally signed in 2007. No figure was publicised when the contract was extended in 2010. The association between the bank and Scotland’s top flight ended last season. Irn Bru’s sponsorship of the Scottish Football League – worth in excess of £3 million over the course of the last three years – also expired earlier this summer. “It’s certainly the current focus but we shouldn’t get carried away by the amount of money that it contributes to the game,” said Doncaster. “The vast majority of money that goes into the game through the SPFL comes through broadcast rights – something like 90-95 percent of the entire pot and all of that is secured already. “So you are talking about something that is important, of course, but it’s not fundamental to the finances of the game.” Doncaster added that the SPFL is “flexible” when it comes to the specific details of a sponsorship deal, and whether all four leagues would need to be sold as one sponsorship package or could be separated. “We’ll be led very much by what sponsors would want to do,” he said. “There is an attraction for sponsors in having all 42 clubs, in having one sponsorship which covers the whole of the country – but that would be led by their requirements when we talk to them.” Doncaster insisted that securing new sponsors is not the only consideration at present. “I think it’s important that we continue to work hard on a number of different fronts, whilst remembering that we have two key roles at the SPFL,” he said. “One is to run a fair competition and the other is to commercialise that competition. “That has been a successful commercialisation to date, largely based on broadcasting. Of course sponsorship is important and work on that will continue but it will be done when it’s done.“It must be a partner that’s fit for the game and fit for the SPFL in terms of the image that it projects. We’ve had a number of expressions of interest from a number of different parties, but it’s important that we have the right brand for the SPFL at such an important time in its development. That’s worth waiting for.” Doncaster was speaking at a Murrayfield Stadium event held to encourage safe driving on Scotland’s country roads. The SPFL and the Scottish Rugby Union have joined forces to help promote a campaign spearheaded by former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard. Doncaster has welcomed the new spirit of cooperation that now exists between the SPFL and the Scottish Football Association, following Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell’s appointment to the main board of the SFA. “The relationship between the SPFL and the SFA is a good one and I think a much better one since the reconstruction’s completion on the 27th June,” he said. “It’s important that the SPFL is properly represented at the Scottish FA main board. We have one representative from the Professional Game Board and now Peter has been elected unopposed by the seven members of that body. “So we are very pleased to have effective representation at the main board following [former chairman] Ralph Topping’s excellent contribution to date. “I think there’s a genuinely collegiate atmosphere at the moment between the Scottish FA and the SPFL and that certainly makes it easier for both bodies to do the best that they can in their different spheres.” http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/neil-doncaster-relaxed-over-lack-of-spfl-sponsor-1-3076595
  11. Ally McCoist is poised to agree a new pay deal that will see his £825,000 salary cut by half in the coming days. The Rangers manager’s current remuneration — while his team play in the lower echelons — has been the subject of intense debate in the week club accounts showed an operating loss of £14.3million for the 13 months to June. McCoist recently went public with his belief that taking a wage cut was ‘the right thing to do’, a view shared by his backroom staff of Ian Durrant and Kenny McDowall. Ally McCoist Wage cut: Rangers boss Ally McCoist is poised to see his £825,000 wages slashed ‘The management team have been in negotiations with Craig [Mather, chief executive] and have, in fact, just agreed to take a wage cut,’ said McCoist last week. ‘I didn’t feel under pressure to do it. When I became manager, I had a contract placed in front of me and I just signed it. ‘I didn’t look at the wages or the length of contract or anything. I think it’s then a little harsh to criticise someone for doing that when you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But I do understand my responsibilities. ‘That’s why as a management team we’re taking a wage cut — we feel it’s the right thing to do and we can help the club.’ Sportsmail understands McCoist will see his pay drop to just over £400,000 once talks with Mather are concluded, with the wage bill of the management team falling from £1.2m to around £700,000. McCoist’s salary was not specifically mentioned in Tuesday’s 48-page annual report but has been a matter of public record for some time. With the club rebuilding after liquidation, supporters were dismayed to see former chief executive Charles Green made £933,000 in the period in question, while finance director Brian Stockbridge pulled in £400,000 — including a £200,000 bonus for Rangers winning the Third Division title. Former commercial director Imran Ahmad made £300,000 — the same salary Green’s successor Mather is now on. Despite a £7.8m wage bill for players being cut to around £6m, there has been widespread anger from fans that the £22m raised from December’s share issue has been frittered away, partly on high executive pay. This has led to a war of words, with Mather insisting former chairman Malcolm Murray approved such arrangements before he joined the club in April. Murray hit back by insisting ‘Green placements’ had effectively decided the levels of remuneraton. Murray claimed former director Phil Cartmell was head of the remunerations committee — a group who never met despite the latter’s best efforts. However, McCoist’s salary was predetermined when the old company was liquidated last year by virtue of Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE). This means that he automatically reverted to the sum he earned in his first season in management when Rangers were an SPL club. Meanwhile, Rangers have successfully applied to the SPFL for the postponement of their League One clash with Dunfermline a week tomorrow because three Ibrox players — Lee Wallace, Lewis Macleod and Arnold Peralta — will be on international duty. With Dean Shiels and Andy Little on stand-by for Northern Ireland, the league leaders decided to request a new date for the match with the Pars, who are five points behind them in second place. Although disappointed with the postponement of the game, which could now go ahead on Tuesday, November 5, Dunfermline manager Jim Jefferies said it was also the ‘biggest compliment ever’ for his team. He said: ‘I always thought the game had a chance of being postponed. They postponed their Ramsdens Cup tie against Queen of the South when it was on the weekend of the Belgium game. ‘Ally did say to me if they had boys away there would be the possibility they would apply for it to be changed, which is in the rules. ‘Ally was expecting it to be five players called up — but I joked with him it was just because we had beaten Ayr United 5-1! ‘I told him we were keen for the game to go ahead because we just want to keep playing — and so does Ally, but it’s their prerogative to appeal and they’ve had the go-ahead. ‘That’s the rules, there’s not a lot we can do about it. ‘I told our players Ally had given them the biggest compliment ever. Even with the size of squad they’ve got, they feel they need their international players for the game.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2443297/Rangers-boss-Ally-McCoist-set-agree-400-000-wage-cut.html#ixzz2ghr66WmS Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
  12. http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/5195-rangers-announce-annual-results
  13. Ally McCoist on Friday night revealed he has taken a wage cut in a bid to help Rangers slash costs. The Ibrox boss and his management team have agreed to a reduction in their salaries amid fears much of the £22million raised last December through an institutional share issue has been wiped out. A promise by finance chief Brian Stockbridge to produce audited accounts by mid-September has so far failed to materialise, while sacked commercial director Imran Ahmad has launched a £500,000 court battle against the club. As the club’s finances take centre stage at a bloody boardroom battle at an AGM next month, however, McCoist has agreed to ease the burden by scaling down his £700,000-a-year salary. ‘It’s just been agreed that the management team are certainly taking a wage cut,’ the Rangers boss on Friday night told plzsoccer.com’s Football Show. ‘I didn’t feel under pressure to do it because effectively I signed a contract. People forget that when I became manager of the club someone put a contract in front of me and I just signed it as simple as that. ‘I didn’t even look at it, to be quite honest with you. I didn’t look at wages or length of contract, I just said: “I’m signing that because it’s what I want to do”. ‘So I think it is a little bit harsh criticising someone when you don’t know what is going to happen in the future.’ McCoist, meanwhile, appealed to Rangers fans to throw their support behind betting bad boy Ian Black. The Ibrox midfielder returns to the team against Stenhousemuir on Saturday after a three-match suspension imposed for breaching SFA rules on gambling on football matches and McCoist hopes supporters will back their man. ‘I’d be very hopeful that it’s now the case that we can all move on,’ said McCoist. Black is a regular target for opposition supporters — but has yet to experience booing from his own fans. McCoist believes the midfielder will cope with that if it happens. ‘Listen, football divides opinion all the time — especially at this club in the last two years,’ he said. ‘That’s a natural part of being involved at this club. I get stick myself about performances and team selections. It’s part and parcel. That will continue to be the case. ‘But I feel the most important thing is that, while we all have different opinions and opinions will be divided, the main focus and sole aim is the club’s focus to get back to where we want to be.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2436100/Ally-McCoist-takes-Rangers-pay-cut.html#ixzz2gAQuhqlE Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
  14. From BBC Chris McLaughlan #Rangers contact police over what they term 'offensive and threatening comments' made about a director on a fans website. BBC get the news first as usual.
  15. Lifted from FF: I have been hearing from various sources that we as a group are being met with mixed reviews from forums etc so decided to come on and let everyone know a bit about us and our aims to allow each to make their own mind up We have been accused of being many people from tims to M Dingwall to D Leggat and even malcolm murray. We are none of these we are only normal concerned fans and if you read attachment below it will give you a better idea of who we are and how we came about. We only have 3 aims and I would question any fan who didnt want these things from their club regardless of who they are and which team they follow 1) Keep the stadium in clubs name to avoid Coventry situation 2) clear accounts which prove proper running of the club 3) a board that keep the club off the front pages and are above reproach We do not have any aims that can divide a support and only actually which to unite fans from all groups against a clear and present danger The following is a post from our facebook page that was first posted 2 weeks ago when we first started. Please take the few minutes to read and DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE surrounding The Sons of Struth https://www.facebook.com/SonsOfStruth Here we go I will try and explain in as short a post a possible who is involved to date with the Sons of Struth and how this page came about. One of our main points of agenda and a main Struthism is openness. Some of you may be aware of the Rangers Rumours website and a regular poster named George or George protester number 1. I picked up on his postings only 1 week ago and was intrigued to know what his feelings and understanding of our clubs current plight was. George arranged to travel from London on Friday and meet anyone interested in what he had to say at Ibrox. Due to my own worries about our club I felt I had nothing to lose other than 10 minutes of my time and a whole lot to gain if he had any information that could fill my appetite to fully understand the situation at our club. The fact that only 10 people turned up confirmed my general feeling that our fans are very apathetic towards the current situation and George was very disappointed also. He did, as many have since held against him, arrive minus the promised leaflets and did introduce himself as a representative of George. Both these points seem to have angered some but I understand why he done both when as he could have possibly been faced with a far greater number of fans who he didn’t know who they where and he was let down by a local printer which was a point later proven to me. To the 10 who were at the first meeting and others who visit the Rangers Rumours site, I was the guy with the red jacket who some believed was Georges minder and I post on the site as Craig protester number 2 BFH. To set the record straight I had never met George before Friday and purely turned up as a disgruntled fan searching for some knowledge. I appeared to pick up on what George was saying very quickly but so did others around me, however George seemed to like the questions I asked him and what I had to say so he asked me after the meeting if I would like to talk further on a one to one basis. This “private” meeting consisted more of us talking like true fans and swapping stories of our favourite experiences following our club than it did about revelations which weren’t disclosed at the full meeting. We did prove our love for our club and our concerns for the future just as many discussions would go between Rangers fans all over the world when two strangers meet and they find they both support Rangers. We decided we would talk again during his stay in Glasgow and exchanged numbers. During the course of last weekend we talked several times over the telephone and agreed to meet on Monday and I would introduce him to my friend Sandy who was also interested to hear what George had to say. During the course of the weekend George had put his leaflet online as he promised. George, Sandy and I met on Monday and again the discussion was no different to hundreds of chats between Rangers fans many times over. We discussed our favourite games, best goals,most manic away trips and the like but most importantly we shared a huge concern over the current state of our dearly held club and a desire to do something about. We all agreed that doing something and failing was more acceptable than doing nothing but with the hope we could make a difference even if it was just to give the proper fans some information that may put some fire in the belly and arouse some passion from within the fan base. We then involved the man power from a well known body of fans, who if they wish to disclose their important and welcome involvement is matter for them, who helped along with hastily recruited normal fans like Paisley Gary to help with the distribution of Georges leaflets prior to Tuesdays game. The leaflets went out and received a mixture of reactions. On Tuesday not long before I left for the game I started the Sons of Struth facebook page. The reasons for this is to give the normal fan who wants our club to return to a stewardship of which we would expect from Rangers. You pick up a paper on Monday going to work and you are faced with another scandal about our club. You discuss it and try to make sense of it but before you have a chance to get your head round it a few days later you’re faced with another earth shaking scandal. This is not what we expect from the custodians of our club. The mere inclusion of the Struth name in the page harks back to an era when our custodians conducted themselves with dignity, honesty and respect. We must install this again from our boardroom. Who am I? I am a nobody. Not attached to any fan group or organisation. I am you. A fan and season ticket holder since the age of 8 years old. What do I want? I want to talk about my favourite memories of Rangers and idols and goals again, not have to discuss and deal with on a daily basis another boardroom scandal and just get back to the football. I want a board that won’t embarrass me and treat me like a fan without hiding facts from me. I want to be assured that the stadium where I have had many happy memories will be in the ownership of my club and not sold off and rented back to us by some spiv. The stadium holds the spirit of not one but three disasters and has to remain ours to honour those who did not return. It has to remain for the thousands who have the names of lost loved ones chiselled on the very bricks in their memory. It is not the crown jewels it is far more important to the very soul of every fan who has ever walked through the turnstiles. Who are the Sons of Struth? We all are and can be ordinary fans or members from any other fan body. If you are a Union Bear or a Supporters Trust member, as long as your principles and desires are the same as ours then we welcome your input and support. We are not affiliated to any other fan body but welcome their involvement and discuss common aims. Our biggest and most immediate threat is the possible sale of our stadium and let me explain why. The ground swell of opinion is the current board may not have 51% of the shareholder support in the near future and as such leaves them in a position of one last heist. Let me explain in simple terms and use your house as an example. You require cash due to your ailing financial position and own a home with a market value of £200k. I agree to give you £100k cash today to solve your short term financial problems and I will rent you the house back for £2k per month. I will also agree to allow you to buy it back anytime in the next 10 years for £300k. I cant lose. I either 1) have you in the home and draw £24k a year of you in rental 2) Get £2k a month off you until your able to give me £300k to get it back 3) You leave the house and I have a building costing me half market value. Now turn this story to Ibrox and what a spiv could do. Sell the stadium to a carefully selected company that a trusted friend owns and the spiv has a vested interest in and do it soon before he loses the majority of shareholders. Couldnt happen? Think of the Monday morning paper stories we have all had to deal with in the last couple of years. SONS OF STRUTH DEMAND THE TRUTH SHOW YOU CARE AND SHARE WITH A BEAR Craig
  16. I'd say we need to move on other players first but interesting news nonetheless... http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/4983-zaliukas-trains-with-gers
  17. ..................... who they trust to put the club back on track KEITH reckons that while Rangers held on to their history, trophies and titles - the club lost its heart and soul after Craig Whyte plunged it under. 16 Sep 2013 00:01 Rangers interim chief executive Craig MatherRangers interim chief executive Craig Mather Graham Stuart/Action Images LET me start with a couple of confessions. First, I don’t know Craig Mather. I have neither met the man nor talked to him. I do happen to know that, in private, he tends not to speak too fondly of me and that’s fine. As someone who has gone to some lengths to expose and condemn the dysfunctionality of the board over which he presides in his highly-paid role as the Rangers chief executive, I would expect nothing else. Mather has made it perfectly clear how badly he wishes to survive in his lucrative position. In fact, both he and financial director Brian Stockbridge have been actively attempting to make themselves bomb-proof from next month’s agm, which is shaping up as a general election to decide the future for Rangers. Perhaps even a defining moment which will determine if this club has much of a future at all. Mather and Stockbridge would prefer not to have to go to the polls. In fact, they wanted desperately to strike a deal with Jim McColl and his group of rebellious shareholders which would have guaranteed their jobs on a new-look board. Perhaps they are worried their credentials will not withstand such a thorough democratic examination and given the mess they have created in their time in charge of the coffers, who could blame them? By Stockbridge’s own recent admission, somewhere between £40million and £50m has gone from the bank vault over the last year or so. This has been an extraordinary cash burn. A £12m injection of funds last summer, followed by £22m from an IPO in December, two lots of £8m from season-ticket sales and various other amounts from commercial deals and hospitality matchday sales. And Stockbridge says only £10m remains. So these men then have already lost a lot. Now though, they stand to lose their own bulging pay packets too and clearly that just won’t do. No wonder they’re prepared to fight in whichever way they can to cling on. And I write this, not only as someone who has personally experienced some dark intimidatory tactics over the past few months, but who has been approached by Rangers employees at both extremities of the club’s pay scale who tell of similar tales. Truly, this club has become toxic beyond belief. After all, for those in charge, it’s all about the pounds, shillings and pence. It’s what brought Mather and Stockbridge to Ibrox in the first instance. It’s what drives them. Mather can hardly sign off on a press release these days without mentioning that he has sunk his own money into this basket case. He did, and in so doing became one of Charles Green’s original backers and trusted allies. Mather handed Green his money and now he wants his pound of flesh. It’s the same with the Easdale Brothers, who were sold a seat on the board by Green, shortly before the Yorkshireman packed up and took his monorail sales pitch to Springfield. All of these characters are hanging around demanding they take what is their due from this club. As is their right. They do not take kindly to being criticised or in some cases even scrutinised. Business is business after all. And Rangers is their business. So, no, I won’t be expecting a Christmas card from Mather. The honest truth of the matter is, for the good of this ravaged and stricken sporting institution, it is my sincere hope that Mather is gone long before then in any case. And that he takes most if not all of the club’s current directors with him. Which moves us along to confession No.2. I DO know Paul Murray. In fact, over the last three years, pretty much since the original Bull**** Billionaire Craig Whyte first appeared on the radar, I have got to know Murray very well indeed. During this time, I have grown to admire the man for his honesty, integrity and sincerity – all qualities which have been in desperately scarce supply around the Rangers trauma. Most of all though I have been struck by his unflinching determination to do the right thing for a football club which has been systematically abused ever since Whyte took it over and forced him off the old board. He is motivated purely by a sense of duty and devotion. In other words Murray is “Aye Ready” to Mather’s “My Readies”. If Mather doesn’t understand what that means he can always ask one of his many spin doctors to explain. They too have to earn their vast Rangers pay checks. And, if nothing else, it’ll keep them off Twitter for a while. That’s where Jack Irvine of Media House, recently reappointed by Mather to fight this dirty war, popped up on Friday full of foul-mouthed, late night insults. Irvine – the man who told the world Craig Whyte was good for Rangers – called McColl a Bull**** Billionaire. And all of this just a few hours after Mather had attempted to humiliate Murray in public with the release of a statement questioning the credentials of this lifelong Rangers fan and former Deutsche Bank high flyer. It was another classless, mean-spirited attack from the club’s own Politburo, in which Murray was made out to be a troublemaker on some sort of vanity project to force his way into a blazer and brogues. Murray responded on Saturday evening when he appeared on BBC Radio to slap Mather back down. And yet, throughout, he maintained a sense of decorum and good manners which seem beyond those currently in charge of the club. Few who listened could have failed to be impressed by the way in which Murray handled himself, or the strength of the message he delivered. He spoke well, his words from the heart and with honesty. Murray stressed that he’d walk away from it all tomorrow so long as he was able to rest at night knowing his club is back in safe hands. Despite the recent smear tactics, I remain convinced that peace of mind is all Murray wishes to gain from this sorry and increasingly spiteful saga. In the end it will all boil down to a matter of trust. The Ibrox fans and the club’s investors will have to decide next month if they trust McColl and Murray. Or if they would rather place their faith in those who continue to recklessly damage Rangers’ reputation. At a time when so much is made about the current status of Rangers, about whether the club died last year or whether it survived the liquidation of the company which owned it, a far more important debate is being ignored among these petty attention seeking squabbles. The truth is, when Green picked this club up for a pittance after Whyte had plunged it under, Rangers held on to its history, its trophies and its titles. Trouble is, it lost its heart and soul somewhere along the way. Perhaps it’ll take men of Murray’s calibre to wipe the ugly snarl from its face and make Rangers recognisable once more.
  18. Further to the announcement on 10 September 2013, the Company confirms that the Board's discussions have been continuing with representatives of the group who requisitioned (together the "Requisitioners") a general meeting to consider the proposed resolutions ("Requisition") detailed in the announcement on 2 August 2013 ("General Meeting"). The Company can confirm that the Requisitioners have withdrawn the Requisition which put forward resolutions for the removal of Craig Mather, Brian Stockbridge and Bryan Smart as Directors of the Company and for the appointment Frank Blin and Paul Murray as Non-Executive Directors of the Company on the condition that the Company convenes its Annual General Meeting to be held no later than 31 October 2013. The Company confirms that all of the current Directors remain in office and that it is not appointing any additional Directors save that as previously announced, the Company confirms that it continues to actively seek to appoint a new Chairman. Further announcements will be made as appropriate. http://www.londonstockexchange.com/e...entId=11707849
  19. Haven't seen this on RM or here but according to the Daily Mail today McColl's gang tried to bring back McClelland as the chairman. Absolutely frightful stuff if true. A real return to the old days when he was Murray's puppet and presided over record levels of debt. I'm neither here nor there with the current board and prospective future board. To me they all remind of the South Park episode where a douche and a turd compete with each other. But it's absolutely disparaging that our prospective leaders want a return of one of our past failures.
  20. I posted this in the footie thread,however I think it has a place here as he says ''He’s in charge of the biggest and most successful club in the country''. IF THERE was a Richter scale for Twitter then the news that Peter Lawwell had been appointed to the main board of the Scottish Football Association would have measured about a 5.5, the digital equivalent of a mighty earthquake. When the news came through on Tuesday there was a sudden tremor online, a reverberation that could have only meant one thing. Something had happened in Old Firm land. Again. There are very sound reasons why Lawwell should be on the SFA board. He’s in charge of the biggest and most successful club in the country. He’s run the finances of that club expertly. He has contacts and knowledge and experience. If it was any other country in the world then there wouldn’t have been such a hubbub about his nomination. The gist of the argument against it appears to be this: He’s Celtic and therefore anti-Rangers. He’ll have too much control. He’ll feather the nest of his own club and shaft the rest. Suspicion and conspiracy and poison, too, but not a lot in the way of commonsense. On Twitter the other night we waited for something that went beyond the usual one-eyed hysteria, some level of criticism of the appointment that had any merit. Eventually, a point was made quietly. And it was an interesting point, whether you agreed with it or not. Is it right that Lawwell should sit on a board that exists to protect Scotland’s footballing interests when his own club have argued for so long that the sooner they leave Scotland the better? That’s a legitimate talking point. Much of the rest of the reaction to Lawwell’s new role was depressingly predictable, though. After the online earthquake of Tuesday, the after-shocks will continue in cyberland for some time to come. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/tom-english-lawwell-s-sfa-appointment-causes-stir-1-3076647?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it
  21. http://sport.stv.tv/football/238344-celtic-chief-executive-peter-lawwell-appointed-to-board-of-scottish-fa/ Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell has been appointed to the board of the Scottish Football Association. The 54-year-old has been nominated as the representative of the Professional Game Board, which contributes to the running of football in Scotland. Lawwell joins the Scottish FA's chief Executive Stewart Regan, president Campbell Ogilvie, Alan McRae, Rod Petrie and Barrie Jackson on the board.
  22. Amidst his unsurprising defence of Jack Irvine, it's interesting that Bill is suggesting a deal to avoid an EGM is 'likely'... http://billmcmurdo.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/civil-war-stalemate/
  23. ... you know, someone had to do it! I'll write and update a list of targets in the first post. Signed: - Nicky Clark (QotS, free, compensation, 3-year deal signed) - Jon Daly (DU, free, 2-year + 1-year extension deal signed) - Cammy Bell (Kilmarnock, 4-year deal signed) - Nicky Law (Motherwell, free, 3-year signed) - Steven Smith (free/Portland, 2-year-deal apparently signed) - Arnold Peralta (Vidal, free, 4-year-deal signed) - Ricky Foster (free, Bristol City, 2-year deal) - Biliel Mohsni (free, 2-year deal) - Kenny Miller (free/Portland, resigned) - Lee Robinson (QotS) - Tom Hateley (Motherwell, free) [ - Chris Humphrey (Motherwell, free, was in talks) signed for Preston North End] Gone: - Neil Alexander (end of contract) - Kane Hemmings (end of contract) - Kal Naismith (on loan, Accrington Stanley) + + + From FF ... Links galore ... The Express
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