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By Chris Graham Let me state from the outset that it is the right, and to some extent the duty, of fans to question the team and the manager. Rangers fans pay good money to support the team and like fans of any other team they have every right to debate team selection, tactics, signings and everything else that effects the team they love. So in some ways the recent debate around Ally McCoist and the focus on the performance of the team is a welcome relief from the constant boardroom shenanigans we've had to put up with over the past two years. Having said that, the debate over the board was peppered with misinformation and the recent discussion and debate over Super Ally has been the same. There is a unique hypocrisy to claiming you are a loyal fan and then performing an attempted character assassination on someone who, no matter how skilled a manager they turn out to be, is a club legend who held the club together through one of the most turbulent periods in its history. If you find that you are prepared to publicly describe a man, who was widely acknowledged as having carried the club on his shoulders during the past two years, as having "sold out" then you better make sure you have something to back up your claim beyond internet rumour and an inability to comprehend publicly available information. There have been three main examples of where recent discussion around McCoist has moved from normal fan and press examination to something considerably more sinister. Michael Stewart's ill considered rant on BBC Scotland Sportsound was one. The barely concealed vitriol of Glenn Gibbons' recent Scotsman article was another, and last but not least, and the most disappointing of all since it appears to have been written on behalf of a group of Rangers fans, was an article on the Vanguard Bears front page. Let us first consider Michael Stewart and friends on BBC Scotland last Saturday night. Stewart's opening gambit is to tell us that he's had a run in with Ally McCoist earlier that week over something he had written in the Sun, and what follows certainly indicates that he hasn't taken terribly well to being put in his place by the manager. He's ably assisted by Graham Spiers who decides to break the BBC rule of not commenting on internet leaks by discussing the general content of leaked emails which he wants us to think should be "difficult" for McCoist. Apparently McCoist is "feigning" not having detailed knowledge of Rangers finances. The entire BBC panel are happy with their original assumption that McCoist must know more about the finances than he's letting on. Nobody wants to challenge it. At no point does this panel, with literally no knowledge of management or coaching at a big club, club finances, or the internal conditions at Rangers for the past two years, consider that McCoist might simply have been working to the, with hindsight, wildly inaccurate financial projections of former Finance Director, Brian Stockbridge. Quite how a discussion which starts with talk of Stockbridge's removal turns into a critique of McCoist is a mystery which will have to remain with the panel. McCoist, we are told, "knows how to work it". He knows how to "manipulate public opinion". The first caller is inexplicably a Celtic fan who continues the character assassination and is allowed several minutes to object to any, even timid, defence of McCoist. I could go on. The entire thing is a disgrace. The programme is well into its swing before Stewart is teed up, in a move clearly discussed before the show, to indicate his disdain for McCoist's coaching talent. This is Michael Stewart who hasn't coached a team in his life. Spiers is allowed to state, without challenge, that McCoist's salary is £850k a year - the latest falsehood from a man to whom accuracy is a form of kryptonite. Stewart has spoken to former Rangers players (unnamed) who have told him "the training is very standard" and "nothing exceptional is being worked on". Standard training! How shocking. Spiers, who has previous on unsubstantiated claims from unnamed sources, tells us that an SPL manager has told him that Rangers "don't play like a very well coached team". We are then treated to some faux outrage about McCoist and his backroom staff celebrating too much over a goal against Dunfermline. Yes, really, they think he shouldn't be celebrating goals too much. I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail about Gibbons' article. If you haven't seen it then don't bother. It's exactly what you would expect from a man who cannot hide his hatred anytime he writes about our club. What was most remarkable about his article was not the content, or the malice in it towards McCoist, but the fact that certain Rangers fans were happy to promote the article on social media despite having full knowledge of what Gibbons was all about. All of which brings us to VB and the article on their front page. I should perhaps declare that I have previous with some members of VB but I largely ignore their more vitriolic output, even when it is directed at me and others I know. However, this article was so full of drivel, and frankly so disrespectful to a man who has given so much to the club, that it is worthy of comment. I'll pick up on a few points made by the anonymous VB scribe before moving on to try to lay out some facts about the past couple of years relating to Ally. The article states as fact that "at no point was McCoist working for nothing". This is nonsense. It tells us that Ally's salary was £825,858 per annum. This is wrong. It tells us that Ally's recent offer to take a huge wage cut is in fact a "deferral". Again not true. In addition to the above inaccuracy we have some pretty shameful language used to describe McCoist. He is a "so called Rangers man". He is "as much a drain on our resources as the people on the board who were branded spivs". Finally, in a show of both ignorance and arrogance the unnamed author tells us that "it appears we have been sold out by our manager". So let's examine McCoist the "sell out" shall we? Ally McCoist did work for free for 3 months during administration. He received no salary at all for March, April and May 2012. He has never received a penny of that money back. His gross annual salary is £750,000 a year. There were no bonuses. If you properly examine the accounts and the prospectus then this is quite clear. Following the takeover of the club, McCoist agreed to work for a lower wage of £600k for a period of five months. When £22m was raised from the IPO, his representative requested that his wage payments be returned to the contracted value and that those payments were brought up to date for the 5 month reduced period. At no point was McCoist's contract amended or was any suggestion made by the board that the wage reduction be permanent. McCoist did not at any point request an increase in his contracted salary. During Administration, when he should have been coaching the team, McCoist was constantly meeting with Administrators, the legal representatives of the SFA, SPL and SFL as well as the various office bearers and executives of those three organisations. Following that, he continued to take part in the process of negotiating the infamous five way agreement and the smart money is on the outcome of that being considerably worse had it just been left to Green. All of this was taking place when Michael Stewart would have us believe that McCoist should have been completely restructuring the playing side of the club. Even as late as November 2012, whilst still on reduced wages, McCoist was being asked, in addition to his football duties, to present to potential investors in London during a two week period ahead of the IPO. All of this was in addition to having to cobble together a squad which had been decimated by administration, to which the vast majority of additions were free transfers and where several of the additions were not of his choosing. Is his wage too high? With hindsight, yes, but he offered to reduce it in October 2013 and, for reasons known only to the Executives at the time, the agreed cut was not actioned until around a week ago. They seemed more intent on attempting to deflect attention away from their own disgraceful plundering of the club than they were on accepting a genuine offer from someone who cares as deeply as you or I about Rangers. The idea that McCoist should have offered to reduce his contractual wage when the original financial projections showed only a loss of around £1m for the financial year is ridiculous. It is even more ridiculous when you see the wages and bonuses being paid to others at the club at the time. Why would McCoist have thought the club couldn't afford it? Even when that predicted loss was amended to £7m it is quite apparent that those around McCoist, with a much clearer view of the club finances, were reassuring him that all was well. As recently as October 2013, Stockbridge was still telling everyone that player wages were "sustainable". As soon as it became apparent that Stockbridge, Green and Ahmad had got things woefully wrong and that the club was haemorrhaging money at an alarming rate, McCoist offered to reduce his wage in the region of 45%. Apparently, to some, this makes him a "sell out". The worst thing about this is that there is a coordinated feel to some of the recent attacks on McCoist and I sincerely hope that those Rangers fans taking part in it are doing so through ignorance rather than complicity. Criticise the manager to your heart's content for things you don't like on the pitch. Debate the team selection. Debate the signings. Moan about under par performances but remember the burden which has been borne by McCoist over the past two years. Ask yourself if anyone else at our club could have done it. Ask yourself if he genuinely should have had such in depth sight of our finances that he was able to contradict our own financial director's forecasts. Ask yourself if you really want the final, high profile employee at the club who has genuine feeling for Rangers, removed for failing to do a job that was never his to do in the first place. It's an odd situation to see a group of Rangers fans, who normally, often quite correctly, scream from the rooftops about BBC output, suddenly promote Michael Stewart's rant on Twitter and forums. It's odder still to see some of them promote the work of Glenn Gibbons whose previous they are more than aware of. When challenged on this approach we've seen the group in question's official Twitter account inform another Rangers fan to "take McCoist's c##k out your mouth". Frankly it's the sort of thing you'd expect from the most demented amongst the Celtic support. We've seen PR men, supposedly working for the club, not only look to undermine a potential investor in Dave King but now also attempt to turn fans against our own manager. Clearly some are more eager to believe this nonsense than others. You really have to wonder why. The time to judge Ally McCoist will be when he's had an opportunity to do his job unhindered. It will be when he's had the opportunity to build a team out of something other than free transfers and young lads. Despite that fact that none of these norms have been afforded to him during his time as manager, he's continued to do his best in trying circumstances and has comfortably achieved the required promotion from two divisions. I fully expect him to achieve the same next season. Perhaps Graham Wallace will show himself to finally be the CEO who will provide Super Ally with the basic tools to do his job and be judged in fairer circumstances. For all our sakes let's hope so. In the meantime, debate away but how about we show our manager, a club legend, some respect and don't lap up the vitriol from elements of the press and dark corners of the internet?

OK guys, while I don't expect much movement in or out at the Gers today, what's yer thoughts on who could/should come and go... I'm hopeful we'll retain Lee Wallace but think we should be looking to move on fringe players as well as ensuring game-time for any younger lads to aid with development. IN: Erm, none. OUT: Shiels (loan) Crawford (loan) Gasparotto (loan) Simonsen (released)

RANGERS supporters will seek new assurances from chief executive Graham Wallace about the club's finances today - as Lee Wallace edged nearer the exit. Wallace will hold talks with representatives of the three main fans' organisations, the Assembly, the Association and the Trust. And officials at all three bodies hope this afternoon's talks will be the start of a long-term working relationship. But the former Manchester City chief operating officer is set to face tough questioning about the money situation at the SPFL League One leaders. Sky Bet Championship club Nottingham Forest have had two bids - the second believed to be for £1million - for Wallace turned down. But there is mounting speculation the Scotland left-back will be allowed to leave if an offer of £1.5million is received. The 26-year-old stayed loyal to the Light Blues when they dropped down to the bottom tier last season and it is uncertain if he would agree to go. But the first-team squad was asked to consider taking a 15% pay cut earlier this month to reduce significant monthly losses at the Ibrox club. And the former Hearts player could be put under pressure to leave in order to generate income and drive down the players' wage bill. Rangers Supporters Association spokesman Drew Roberton stressed that fans remain concerned about the future despite being told that administration is not a possibility. He said: "I definitely see these meetings as a positive step. I think it is important for the club to have a constructive relationship with the fans considering what has gone on in the last couple of years. "Whoever is in charge of the club has to establish some sort of working relationship with the supporters. Let's hope that these meetings are the start of some kind of regular dialogue between us in the future. "The club needs all the fans fully behind them if we are to get back to where we were before at the forefront of the Scottish game and hopefully this is Graham Wallace's way of ensuring that happens." Roberton added: "But in light of the recent requests for the players to take a pay cut, and given that our former financial director said that we would be down to just £1m by April, there is real concern among the fans that the club has the money to continue to the end of the season. "To be fair to Graham Wallace, he has stated on more than once occasion that he doesn't see a problem arising and he has access to information and facts and figures that we as ordinary fans do no have. "But if the club do sell Lee Wallace it wouldn't go down well at all with fans. It would certainly add fuel to the fire about fans' concerns over club finances. "If there is no risk of administration then why bother selling your best player? Selling Lee Wallace is not a move with the future of the footballing side of the club in mind. "I am sure Lee would be one of the highest earners at the club. But would selling him really be worth it in the long run? "It may be the chief executive's and board's thinking for the future in terms of finances. But it would be a concern from a playing point of view as we prepare to move up to the Championship next season." http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/rangers/rangers-fans-seek-cash-vow-at-wallace-summit-150246n.23307892

http://www.sellsgoalkeeperproducts.com/news/rangers-on-the-rise Hi Steve, we haven’t spoken since you joined Rangers – how did the move come about? I was on loan at Dundee last season from Preston and the manager, John Brown, is a former Rangers player who still has a lot of contacts at the club. I’d heard they were looking for another keeper ahead of this season, so he kindly made a couple of calls on my behalf. Ally McCoist [Rangers manager] invited me to train for a couple of weeks and at the end of it I was handed a contract. You’ve played for some big clubs like Everton, Stoke and Sheffield United, but Rangers must be an amazing club to play for? If you put aside the league we are playing in at the moment, it’s one of the biggest clubs in the world in terms of its stature and support. Despite everything that’s happened off the pitch it’s a fantastic club to play for; the facilities are top class and we have 36,000 season-ticket holders at Ibrox – and that’s for the third tier of Scottish football. The loyalty is incredible and there are many clubs in the top leagues in world football who would love that kind of backing. The size of the club is what entices players here, not the fact that we are playing in League One; Rangers have a worldwide status. It’s looking good for successive promotions, isn’t it? We’re 23 points clear at the top of the table, so hopefully we can get the title wrapped up by mid-February and then that takes us into the Championship – just one promotion from where the club was prior to our demotion. What’s happened off the pitch is not fault of the players, the management or most of the staff. It was taken out of their hands, but what we can do is work hard to get the club back to the highest level in Scottish football as soon as possible. Are away games tougher, given games against Rangers are like cup finals for these teams? You visit some of the grounds and they are like the equivalent of three leagues lower than the Conference in England. They have just the one stand with some terracing but when Rangers visit they have to erect two or three temporary stands to accommodate all the supporters. I’m using East Fife as an example, but when we play there twice a year, the finances raised will keep them going for two or three years. With the league wrapped up, does the Scottish Cup take on primary importance? It does. We’ve beaten Airdrie from our league, Falkirk – who are top of the Championship – and next week it’s Dunfermline. We’re then in the last eight with a real chance of playing a Premiership team. We need to play that type of opposition, to give us a better yardstick of where we are. Who knows, we might even get Celtic! You’ve come in as understudy to Cammy Bell – but made quite an impression on your debut, didn’t you? Yes, Cammy’s partner was giving birth, so I came in for the game at Forfar and kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 win. I also made what must be the best save of my career; a corner has come in, deflected off the side of Lee Wallace’s head and was heading for the top corner. I’ve pounced like a cat out of a tree and managed to claw the ball away with my left hand. I had nice comments on Twitter, people saying it was the best save they’d ever seen, and that – like the manager says – is why I’m here. I’m here to step in when needed and show my worth to the side. Finally, what does the future hold for you? I’m contracted until the end of the season, but would like to stay longer. At 34 I’ve still got a lot to offer and I’d like to think my experience is also rubbing off on the other keepers at the club. Along with our goalkeeper coach, Jim Stewart, we’re a tight-knit bunch of keepers and we’ve got a good working relationship with each other. Cammy is the club’s long-term prospect, but if I can keep pushing him and also do myself justice when I play, then that’s good news for the club. I’ve also started coaching the younger keepers here but as I’ve shown when I’ve played, there’s still plenty left in the tank!

WITH the cash crisis at Ibrox heading towards a critical point Keith wonders what the South African-based businessman is waiting for before making his move. ANOTHER week, another load of twists in the great Rangers Rubik’s Cube. Yet more puzzles created by this conundrum of a football club. On Friday night it was announced that Brian Stockbridge had finally left the building, a development which itself posed more questions – some obvious, others not so much. First, why on earth did it take so long for the penny to drop that the accountant in chief – and part-time home video enthusiast – had such apparent difficulty with numbers? And then, more intriguingly, what was the real story behind the repayment of Stockbridge’s £200k bonus? And did he, as was reported on Saturday morning, walk away with a year’s salary paid up in full? On the one hand, Stockbridge stood up at the club’s agm in December and stated bonus money had been handed back. It’s widely understood this was done at the insistence of the club’s largest shareholder, Laxey Partners, in return for their backing at the vote. Last week Graham Wallace, the recently appointed CEO who is battling to tidy up the mess, also went on record to confirm this money had been returned to the Rangers account. And that it was done so in advance of that December 19 agm. All of this would doubtless have come as some comfort to the club’s supporters who ran out of patience and trust in Stockbridge many moons ago. So let’s ask again then. What exactly was it that Stockbridge did to deserve leaving Ibrox with a full year’s salary in his tail? And while we’re at it, here’s another question: What do the players in Ally McCoist’s dressing room – who were being asked to consider cutting their own wages just the other week – make of this? The big question now is where Rangers go from here because what I’m hearing from inside Ibrox is that Stockbridge may have got his numbers wrong when he predicted the business would be down to its last million pounds by April. The true extent of the club’s short-term funding gap may be much deeper than that, according to certain sources. In fact, they made need a huge injection of money just to get to the end of next month. Which is why Dave King’s re-emergence at the start of last week was both timely and intriguing. Timely because his cash could help avoid any imminent crisis. But also intriguing as the Rangers board seem reluctant to ask him for any of it. Now this really is a riddle. Is King really the man to mend this basket case? And if he is, will the current regime allow him to? Or are they determined to keep him out? King appeared to leave logic at the door when he called for Rangers to carry on spending last week, despite previously warning of the possibility of Administration II. But, on closer inspection, his mixed messages were perhaps not as absurd as they seemed. When he says McCoist’s playing budget is not what is sinking the current regime, he is absolutely correct. Yes the wages he and his players have received to conquer the fourth and third tiers of Scottish football have been ridiculously over the top. But – at less than 30 per cent of the club’s turnover – they should not be endangering the club’s financial health. Far from it. In fact, this spend falls well within the ideal model of good housekeeping. So while it may have been unnecessary and even foolish to spend so much to win these leagues, what’s done is done. And now, at a time when Rangers are finally nearing the top end of the divisions, it seems almost every bit as ludicrous to start taking money away from McCoist who must wonder if his world will ever make sense again. One week he has accountants walking through his dressing room carrying clip boards and brandishing big red pens. The next he’s taking his players to Carnoustie for lunch and afternoon naps ahead of an away game at Forfar in a league that is already won. When this column revealed details of that road trip, it was taken by some as an attack on McCoist. Not so. Rather, it was an attempt to highlight the topsy-turvy, incoherent decision making going on above his head. So let me state again, the real culprits behind this club’s overspending have been based in the boardroom, not the dressing room. And now Stockbridge has gone but King remains on the outside looking in. Why exactly is that? There are some Rangers fans who understandably struggle to comprehend why he has not stepped up to the plate long before now. If King really has the collateral and the cajones to go with it, then what is he waiting for? Because the very last thing this club needs now is another flirtatious time-waster. He’s either serious about saving Rangers or he isn’t. However, there are others very close to King who are adamant that this man is not only the real deal but the club’s only viable chance of salvation. Their hope is that new shares are released and that King is then able to buy up control – with his money going straight into the club’s coffers. But there is concern too that King’s road might be blocked by those who seek to cling on to positions of power. Will the Easdales, Blue Pitch and Margarita, for example, be prepared to have their own holdings diluted in order to let King get his foot in the Ibrox front door? Meanwhile, Rangers are running out of money fast. Some short-term funding may have to be secured just to keep the floodlights on through February, March and April while the longer-term issues are being debated and resolved internally. But Wallace had better act swiftly to pull this thing together because all the while Rangers supporters are in danger of becoming disenfranchised from their own club. If enough of them should chose to keep their hands in their pockets this summer then another huge hole will appear in the club’s future funding. And then this endless puzzle of the Rangers finances might become impossible to solve.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/201292857/One-year-ago Published by RangersTransparency One year ago Mr McCoist had the chance to lead by example. Subject: Ally Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2012 23:52:06 +0000 From: Brian Stockbridge To: Ian Hart, Walter Smith, Malcolm Murray, Phil Cartmell, Bryan Smart CC: Charles A Green, Imran Ahmad Gentlemen The Board is being asked by Ally and his agent to approve an increase in his salary to the original level of £750k per annum. Whilst some of you may be aware of the background discussions that have taken place with Ally over his remuneration, some of you may not be so I set out the detail below: Originally Ally had an employment contract paying £750k per annum. In consideration for working with the Club during the difficult early stages and as a condition of supporting Charles, it was necessary for Charles to agree with Ally that Ally would have the same option package as Charles Charles, after discussion with Malcolm, agreed to reduce his own salary by half to £360k per annum. Ally agreed to reduce his salary from £750k to £600k per annum. At the time of the IPO, it became apparent that public disclosure of Ally's salary may be necessary in the Prospectus. Ally was concerned at how the fans would react to his salary level and I understand that he wanted to reduce it further to around £200k but with some sort of guaranteed bonus to make it back up. The Executive did not accept this as it was considered misleading and the disclosure made in the prospectus was for the actual amounts paid to Ally from June to August. The Executive agreed to explore every avenue to avoid having to disclose Ally's current contract and, after lengthy discussion with the Executive and its advisers, the UKLA accepted that no disclosure needed to be made about the level of Ally's ongoing salary. The Executive has recently been contacted by Ally's agent requesting an increase in Ally's salary from £600k back to the original £750k from now but with arrears of £62.5k to be paid in the January payroll (this represents the 5 months backdated pay). The Board is asked to consider and, if appropriate, approve the reinstatement of Ally's salary at £750k per annum and the payment of £62.5k of arrears. If this is approved then Ally's original contract will become in force. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. If this is real then I can see Ally quitting or being sacked.

Like a lion-tamer jabbing a chair at the gates of Ibrox Dave King shows no sign of leaving a riled Rangers board in peace. The former director says a second Ibrox share issue is now ‘100 per cent inevitable’ and he expects to be involved. The response from an increasingly exasperated Rangers support – no doubt the directors as well - was a roar of frustration. Put up or shut up was the cry. Show us your money. When it comes to spending other people’s money, of course, football supporters are the wizards of Wall Street. Yet the truth is this. Many show a remarkable inability to either listen to or absorb the line King has consistently adopted on this. He says he has the means to buy Rangers. Shelling out £43.7million to the South African authorities last year in full and final settlement of one of the lengthiest tax disputes the country had ever known, King described it as a ‘favourable’ result. Money: Were King to buy up all 60 million of the shares in circulation at that price he could, in theory, take control of Rangers for £16.2m There are people out there worrying where their next meal might come from. Dave King isn’t one of them. His personal wealth is known only to him. How he acquired it is also a question the SFA could be forced to ask one day. But in the aftermath of the settlement with the South African Revenue Service shares in Micromega, his South African firm, soared. On paper, at least, he appears to be a hugely wealthy man. All of which adds to the bewilderment of Rangers supporters that he won’t simply step in and end their misery by paying the opportunist investors currently running the club to go away. Since last year’s IPO the Rangers International share price has dropped from 70p to a mere 27.25p on Friday morning. Were King to buy up all 60 million of the shares in circulation at that price he could, in theory, take control of Rangers for £16.2m. That’s a sum comfortably within his budget. It’s feasible he could pay twice that price and still have change left over. But that doesn’t mean he will. Or that the people currently running the show will stand back and let him. Supporters speak as if all King has to do is transfer a few million quid to an Escrow account and pick up the keys to Ibrox. It’s not that simple. He could certainly make an offer for existing shares but he has said from the start he won’t put money into the pockets of wide boys. In June 2012 King met Charles Green at Ibrox and quickly established that the Yorkshireman and his faceless backers saw Rangers as the vehicle for making a fast buck. By the time he left Green took close to £1m out of the club. In contrast King is the proverbial ‘Rangers man’. A rarity willing to put millions into buying players for his boyhood idols in the full knowledge he will lose every penny. He put £20m of his own cash into the David Murray regime and lost it all. To hand yet more cash over to the corporate sharks who have landed Rangers in a hell of a mess through their avarice and opportunism, then, would stick in the throat. Neither is there any guarantee Sandy and James Easdale – the public faces on the throne – would sell. Meeting Sandy Easdale at his bus depot in November, King struck up a cordial relationship with the Greenock tycoon. But right now the Easdales show no inclination to hand the reins over to anyone. Their problem, however, is this. Rangers are running out of money. They could sell Lee Wallace, they could cut back the playing squad and they could trim costs across the board. But King articulated a common view among supporters this week. Becoming a team of also rans is simply unthinkable to Rangers. Almost as unpalatable as Celtic reaching ten-in-a-row. Yet unless the Easdales find a way to raise cash quickly it could easily happen. King’s solution is to underwrite a fresh issue of shares and return to the boardroom. For existing investors that’s a last resort option. They would have to dig deep once more or see their power base eroded. They don’t fancy that one bit. But if the alternative is another insolvency event then they may have little choice. Another Ibrox sugar daddy won’t appeal to everyone. The common sense solution would be for Rangers to spend what they earn. To stop throwing good money after bad and live within their means. But, as Walter Smith observed recently, common sense and Rangers finances rarely go hand in hand. Dave King remains hellbent on proving it. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2545705/Stephen-McGowan-Dave-King-showing-no-signs-leaving-riled-Rangers-board-peace.html#ixzz2rP65E6Ui Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Former Rangers director Dave King fears a savage programme of cuts will leave the Ibrox club unable to halt Celtic’s title-winning momentum. Reacting to news of Rangers players being asked to consider wage cuts of up to 15 per cent King remains committed to investing heavily in the club via a new issue of shares. As Chief Executive Graham Wallace tries to slash the club’s losses before seeking fresh investment, however, South Africa based King tells Sportsmail in a wide-ranging interview of his fears that could hand Celtic a free run at 10-in-a-row. +4 Fears: Rangers director Dave King believes a programme of cuts could hinder Rangers' chances of halting Celtic's title-winning momentum in the future What is your view on the proposed Rangers cut-backs by Chief Executive Graham Wallace? 'My view has been very clear from the start and it hasn’t changed. I think the club require a level of investment in the playing squad that allows it to hit the ground running when it gets back into the SPFL Premiership. 'My view has always been that the funders should be like-minded people who are willing to come in and fund ahead of what’s required to win the leagues they are currently in. 'If we cut the club back to a level that’s just enough to win the League One or the Championship then that’s fine. But the gap between ourselves and Celtic when we get to the Premiership will be obvious. 'And it will render Rangers a small club in SPL terms for a longer period of time than need be. 'I’m concerned that because the shareholders there at the moment don’t have the appetite or willingness to invest ahead of getting back to the top league we will be really short in terms of the financial and on-field strength. 'No one wants to see Rangers finishing sixth or something like that. 'That would be absolutely horrendous. And certainly contrary to what I would want to do with the club.' +4 Widening gap: Rangers Chief Executive Graham Wallace (pictured with manager Ally McCoist) is proposing more cut-backs at the club The counter argument is that they are losing £1million a month. Even Rangers can surely only spend what they earn? 'They shouldn’t be losing £1million a month. There is no question that you must run the business at an appropriate level – that is clear. 'But I have seen comments that they could run it with the Dundee United wagebill and make a profit. 'They could even run it with the Dundee or Stranraer wagebill and make a profit because of the revenue a club like Rangers has. 'But if you run a club like Rangers on the budget of an East Fife it makes Rangers an equally small club.' But wouldn’t the cuts allow the club to stockpile cash for the Premiership as you suggest? 'Look, we have a situation where they had a fund-raising exercise where they raised tens of millions of pounds. 'One would have thought that that amount of money for a club operating in the third division with the revenue Rangers get for home games compared to the competition would have meant Rangers comfortably winning the third division and running up a surplus which would allow them to slowly move up the leagues and upgrade the quality of player as they go. 'In the latter half of the final season in the Championship they could significantly improve the squad. 'But they have not maintained a strong financial platform. 'We know now the money has been wasted on legal fees, wasted on so many different areas. 'But I don’t feel the club should respond by cutting the costs to the point of saying ‘we only have to do what is necessary to beat East Fife or whoever.’ 'Because if you do that Celtic will build up to 10-in-a-row and we could be so far behind them that even when we are back in the Premiership we are not in a position to catch up.' So there has to be a middle ground between the cuts proposed by Graham Wallace and lavishing cash on the team? +4 Finding middle ground: King believes the club need to spend appropriate sums of money 'Yes. It’s about finding the middle ground and the balance between losing money and doing what it takes to win. 'You certainly don’t want a Premiership wage structure to win the third division or even the second division. 'Your costs have to be appropriate. But just cost cutting per se and doing just enough to get by in the lower leagues is not what the fans pay for. 'The fans are not paying East Fife prices for season tickets. So they should get more on the pitch than the level they are at. 'We have not used the opportunity created by being forced down to the lower leagues to start blooding youngsters and getting them mentally attuned to the demands of winning titles with Rangers. 'Young players allied to a kitty to bring in the level of players needed to compete with Celtic was the way to go. 'Celtic are getting stronger financially. They have sold the McGeadys, the Hoopers, the Wanyamas and they are building up a reserve. 'They have cut their cloth and they are going to be in such a strong position with the revenue coming in that the gap may just be too large for us to bridge. 'That is my concern. Cost-cutting is not going to help us when we get to the Premier League. 'Because we could go into the SPFL top tier and finish fifth. 'The only alternative is someone having to open the taps up - and you can’t just buy a whole new team in a season. You can’t do that.' Do you fear that the cuts might even endanger the smooth path back to the Premier League for Rangers? 'Absolutely. Rangers ambition should not be to be slightly better than the teams in the first division. 'We really have to have a team, next year in particular, which is strong enough to prevail. 'We have to get through at the first time of asking next year. 'We have to be in a position to go up to the Premiership and we have to be in the position to launch a challenge to Celtic. 'There is no guarantee we are going to beat Celtic in the first season – infact it’s unlikely. 'It would be a miracle if Rangers were to go on and win the league the first season back. 'But, similarly, we cannot risk going to Celtic Park and being battered 6-0. 'We can’t start losing 3-1 to Hibs and Aberdeen and accepting it. 'Saying, "we are in a period of adjustment, it’s not too bad a season," is not an option. It’s totally unacceptable.' Should boardroom executives be shouldering more of the burden for cut-backs? 'If the CEO of the company has no money he has no choice but to cut wages and costs any way he can. 'But then Rangers are going to be a small club. 'They need an investment profile and what I was expecting post AGM was for the board to say, "we understand we have a funding gap, we understand we have to go and raise funds to start preparing Rangers for the inevitable return to the Premiership. We need to start bringing a youth squad through, we have to start scouting and having a proper preparation for challenging Celtic." +4 Winning mentality: David Templeton (centre) celebrates scoring in the 2-0 victory over Forfar on Monday 'And that would require the raising of funds in the marketplace. 'But it seems to me they are either unwilling or unable to do that. 'So what they are saying is, "we will cut the costs to make sure we do not need money."' 'Which effectively means living on the fans season ticket sales.' Graham Wallace says he could speak to you about investment once the cuts are made. Should he be doing it now? 'I think that’s a decision they must make. 'For me there is no problem with any CEO making cuts to right-size the business if that’s what they want. 'But the fans deserve more than the downsizing of Rangers to compete in the Scottish first division. 'They deserve a team which is superior to the competition in the lower leagues because they are paying for that. 'They deserve to see a progression in the quality of the finances and the players on the pitch as they move up the leagues so that we enter the Premiership in a competitive frame of mind. 'My concern is that we are making the club smaller. And that we are creating a gap. 'That’s not the fault of Graham Wallace because he is the CEO and has to deal with what he has got. 'It’s an issue relating to the board who should be having a rights issue – and that could mean the existing guys putting the money in if they want. 'The club needs a level of funding that allows it to go forward above the level they are competing in and make sure they have a fighting chance in the Premiership. 'I would never have expected us to go into the Premier League and come worse than second 'I’m mentally not attuned to the possibility of going up there and coming fourth of fifth. 'As a fan I would find that quite unacceptable and I don’t think Rangers should be run as a club which finds it fine to finish fourth or fifth while saying, "that wasn’t bad for a first season back." The worst we must do is finish second.' Have you had any communication at all from the Rangers board since your offer to invest after the AGM? 'None at all.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2545041/Rangers-director-Dave-King-Listen-simply-risk-6-0-battering-Celtic-Park.html#ixzz2rIRgYNDJ Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Down to 30.4p, is there only one way for the shares to go with the present board ? Does the share price really matter?

​"'For an hour yesterday lunch-time Graham Wallace spoke about the state of Rangers, how the club got to this point and how he intends to move it forward. What struck home was how different he sounds compared to his predecessors; no trumpeting about brands and unexploited foreign markets, no playing to the gallery and telling people what they want to hear; no flannel and arrogance of the kind we have heard repeatedly over the years from Rangers executives as they sold a vision of the future while the present was crumbling around their ears. Wallace is enough of a realist to know the scale of what he faces at Ibrox. Everywhere you look, there are issues. TE: Since you lifted the bonnet and examined the finances has anything shocked you? GW: I?m not sure if shock is the right word. I followed what has happened to the club, albeit from a distance. It?s a situation where a lot of decisions were made with a very short-term focus. TE: When you say short-term focus is that a euphemism for panic? GW: Panic? I?m not sure I would call it panic. If you look at a football club you have to have a sense of what the next five years look like and then you plan accordingly. You don?t plan for 12 months in isolation. One of the things I have found is that the focus has (previously) been in the near-term. There?s been areas of expenditure where money has been spent and shouldn?t have been and other areas where we should have been spending and didn?t. The classic one was scouting and recruitment. At a time when this club needs to be identifying and scouting talent and acquiring talent at attractive levels our scouting and recruitment was largely dismantled. A small example of short-termism. TE: Did they blow it by not setting in place the scouting infrastructure when in the Third Division? GW: You could say that some of the decisions that should have been made then weren?t made and that?s a very good example. What the club should have been doing 18 months ago was investing more money in some of the things that could have borne fruit in the future. But that?s hindsight. TE: You need to save money, but you bring in another financial guru in Philip Nash. That?s not going to save money? GW: Phil can help us quickly get to the nub of some of the issues. He knows football structure. He?s leading the business review project for me so we can get up the hill really quickly. It?s about objectivity. I came here with a fresh pair of eyes and I brought Phil in on the short-term with a fresh pair of eyes and no baggage and preconceived ideas. It just helps us look at things in a more objective way. TE: Big decisions need to be made, big savings need to be found and it takes a big character to make those calls in a place that is not used to fiscal commonsense. Are you tough enough for this job? GW: I?m tough when I need to be tough. I know what needs to be done, I know how to do it and I?m focused on getting it done. TE: Are you prepared for a backlash? GW: You have to be prepared to back your own judgment and back your own ability. Yes, there was a bit of a backlash last week to the concept of a reduction in player wage costs. That?s an example of the area of the business we?re looking at right now. We said we were going to do a comprehensive review of the business from top to bottom and we?re in the midst of doing that. We?re looking at every angle and every opportunity to reduce our costs over the next couple of years so that we can position the business in a financially sustainable way. I keep talking about sustainability and it?s absolutely fundamental. The business has to be able to stand on its own two feet. It has to. It has to be able to stand on its own two feet without huge amounts of investment coming in just to fund the on-going operation. When we go looking for investment we will go looking for the right reasons on the back of a robust business plan. I?m confident in my own ability to be able to deal with situations that will arise. There will be things that will be easier than others. I?m well aware of that. TE: Do you know where you can save money? GW: In certain areas, we?ve a very good idea already. I?m not going to come out and tell you where they are but we?ve been working on the project for a little over four weeks and we are looking at every area. There are areas where we can definitely reduce the historic spend that we?ve had. By similar token, there are other areas where we know we need to invest and grow our top line revenue. TE: Okay, there was a proposal to cut players? wages, but what about a proposal to cut the wages of the executives? At what point do you target them? We all know who we?re talking about here. Rarely have I seen a more unpopular executive at a football club than Brian Stockbridge? GW: We?re looking at the executive team as well as the wider staff organisation. We?re doing it. And I will make my determination and judgment on each and every individual we have in the organisation. I?m well aware of the public criticism that comes with certain members of the staff. What I seek is the supporters giving me the time to complete the review. I will stand behind the decisions I make, good or bad. TE: So there will be changes at the top? GW: We?re looking right across the whole business and need a little bit more time to complete that project

....yet they'll prepare for Forfar match at four star Hotel. KEITH hits out at Rangers' lavish pre-match routine ahead of tonight's League 1 clash with Forfar claiming they are living a champagne lifestyle on an Irn-Bru budget. HERE’S a thing. You know those Rangers players involved in conceptual discussions about theoretical wage cuts last week? And who metaphorically booted the hypothetical idea into touch? Well, here’s today’s reality. Did you know they’re all being bussed to the Four-Star Carnoustie Hotel this morning? Where they’ll enjoy some fine dining for lunch, possibly at the hotel’s own AA Rosette-winning restaurant? Rooms will then be provided in order that they can enjoy an afternoon nap, for those not getting treatments in the spa. All for an away trip to Forfar? To take on Gavin Swankie and Darren Dods? Is it any wonder these players don’t know if they are coming or going? Or that, as he unwraps the chocolate on his fluffy cotton pillow this afternoon, manager Ally McCoist might pause to reflect on where it has all gone wrong. Talk about mixed messages? Talk about champagne lifestyles and Irn-Bru budgets? Talk about hubris, arrogance and over-indulgence? Talk about sledgehammers and walnuts. The constant noise and confusion around Rangers is truly head-melting stuff. No wonder the club’s new chief executive looked slightly ruffled last week when news emerged from Murray Park of his polite suggestion that the first team might consider 15 per cent pay cuts. For a man of his experience Graham Wallace, below right, ought to have known such a proposal would be unlikely to remain within the walls of the dressing room for longer than it takes a player to hit the speed dial button to his agent. It was bound to result in an outbreak of panic among a support that has seen this movie before and which was so badly traumatised by the way it ended. But Wallace can be excused because, not only is he new here but also there must be a million and one different, more pressing thoughts, pinballing around inside his head as he attempts to tackle this latest financial crisis. Commendably, he has promised to deliver a business model that will finally allow Rangers to live within its means. Sustainability, transparency and a bit of common sense would go a long way to sorting out the internal mayhem over which he presides. Today’s unnecessarily lavish road trip, though, is just more proof that, when he agreed to take on this position at the top of a dysfunctional board, he was in fact stepping into life through the looking glass. Wallace in Wonderland. Or not. It’s his job now to make some sense of the numbers, to crunch them down and to crush this club’s recent culture of big bonuses and eye-popping extravagance before what little cash is left in the bank has evaporated completely. There is a rich irony about the fact that, in Philip Nash, he has hired yet another big-earning accountant to assist him in this urgent cost-cutting review. But then this job is so big Wallace might need all the help he can get. And from people in whom he can trust. Wallace’s planning is all that stands now between Rangers and another financial catastrophe. At the present rate of spending, the club’s last reserves will be gone before the end of the campaign. In fact, the prediction of financial director Brian Stockbridge that Rangers will be down to their last million in April now looks hugely optimistic. It is quite incredible this man remains in charge of the books given his standing in the eyes of the fans. It was not long ago he was talking confidently of growing turnover to in excess of £100m. Only then to predict a £7m year-end loss. Which, in fact, turned out to be a £14m black hole. And if, as is being strongly suggested by people on the inside of this basketcase, Stockbridge has got it wrong again then the situation at Ibrox could soon become dire. Perhaps as soon as next month. At a time when every penny counts, thank goodness then that Stockbridge has handed back that £200k bonus he pocketed for watching Rangers win last season’s Third Division title. Right? And has the financial director and the rest of the board actually signed off on the halving of McCoist’s eye-watering £825k annual salary? After talking about it for months, why on earth would it not have been rubber-stamped by now? If all this financial remedial work really has been completed then Wallace should announce it to the Stock Exchange and also reveal the current state of the accounts. It should be done in the name of sustainability and transparency – and in the hope of forcing common sense to prevail. Wallace must be astonished at some of the numbers that have flown across his desk. It is not his fault this club has blown its chance to stockpile cash on its journey up the leagues and there is nothing he can do now to address this grotesque overspend. That ship has sailed. Had Rangers plotted a more sensible course they would be arriving in the top flight in 18 months in a fit and healthy state, with millions squirrelled away. But, in their vulgar rush to cuddle up to McCoist, former chief execs Charles Green and Craig Mather put their own popularity ahead of proper prudence. By doing this, they kept the fans onside and the tills ringing. All Wallace can do now is address the crisis this pair and Stockbridge created. He’s not helped by the fact that, simply by agreeing to join a broken board and glue it back together, he himself is now viewed with varying degrees of suspicion. But, unlike Green and Mather, he must not allow his own popularity to get in the way of protecting the club’s interests. Which is why it was encouraging to see the first steps towards a more austere future being taken last week. But, crucially, if Wallace is serious about grabbing the bull by the horns then he must do so in the boardroom because this is where the biggest excesses have recently been committed. It is hard to think of another club that spends millions less on its players than on the rest of its employees but that’s precisely what the accounts showed to be the case at Rangers last year. No wonder the players refuse to take the first hit when there are other far more bloated and obvious targets at the top of the marble staircase. These players may well feel treated like disposable window dressing when they are supposed to be the very heart of the club. And here’s another thing. They were asked to ponder a 15 per cent cut over a period of 18 months, while also being told the club hopes to sign even more players in the summer. Which means some of them might be volunteering to help finance their own replacements. And you thought lunch at Carnoustie was mad?

LAST summer, when Ally McCoist’s request for nine new players was granted by his then chief executive, Craig Mather, who was at fault? This was a club that had financial problems, that didn’t have the luxury of adding players to an already gob-smacking wage bill and yet added them anyway. Who was to blame? It wasn’t McCoist. Managers everywhere will push their luck from now until kingdom come. It’s part of their gig. They go to their boss with a sob story and a cap in hand and hope for the best. Sometimes they get a result and sometimes they don’t. And McCoist got a result. You cannot blame the Rangers manager for recruiting but you can most certainly blame Mather and his financial director, Brian Stockbridge, for allowing him to recruit. McCoist looks after matters on the field, the others were supposedly monitoring things off the field. They flunked it. They looked at the state of the finances and either mis-read them or ignored them and added to a wage bill that was drastically in need of a cut. This, of course, has been the way of things at Rangers for far too long. Mistake follows mistake. Irresponsibility follows irresponsibility follows irresponsibility. The names change but the hubristic decision-making remains the same. Mather and Stockbridge are guilty in this instance, but only one of them remains. Quite how Stockbridge is still in his position is a wonder to behold. That’s not to absolve McCoist, whose public comments over the past would indicate that he hasn’t fully grasped the situation he is in at Ibrox. Or maybe he has and is railing against it, like a man raging against the dying of the light. A week ago, McCoist said this about the Rangers way of doing things: “It makes sense to me that we continue to have a higher wage bill than the opposition that we’re playing against.” Higher, yes. But how many times higher? Ten times? One hundred times? A thousand times? It brings us back to the old question: why spend money that you don’t need to spend? That’s a question that too many at Ibrox – Graham Wallace, the chief executive, excluded – continue to struggle with. McCoist, pictured left, continued: “I didn’t give the contracts out and it would be unfair of me to comment on previous people within the club who made those decisions. I would certainly not be critical of them.” Wouldn’t be critical of them? Well, he should be. He should be very critical of them. McCoist was given permission to bring in players on wages that Rangers could not afford by executives who should have known better, executives whose decisions have landed Rangers in another desperate mess. He’s almost duty-bound to criticise them. Mather was a disastrous chief executive for Rangers but his was just another ill-advised appointment in a long series of ill-advised appointments. The Rangers manager said on Friday that he now understands the “severity of the situation”. That’s progress at least. The first step towards fixing a problem is to accept that you have a problem in the first place. Mather never could. Others, too, some of whom are still at Ibrox. McCoist was right in supporting his players over the pay-cut proposal but only in so far as that the cuts should have been made higher up the tree first. The executives should have taken a pay cut and should have announced it publicly. That would have been good leadership, but good leadership is not something this Rangers board – or many that went before it – would recognise. The bottom line is that costs must be cut – and players and suits alike need to take their share of the pain. McCoist has too many players offering too little and being paid too much. He needs to accept that. It seems he’s still struggling with the concept at the moment. And he’s not alone at Ibrox. Wallace has much work to do. In many ways he is fighting against the mindset of the club’s past in an effort to secure its future.

Being reported by BBC & STV that the players have refused to take a 15% pay cut.

​ JAMES and Sandy Easdale are poised to plough around £20million into cash-strapped Rangers. By: Graham Clark Published: Fri, January 17, 2014 0 Comments James and Sandy Easdale are set to give Rangers a well-needed cash boost [WILLIE VASS] The Greenock businessmen, already significantly involved in the Ibrox club as shareholders and directors, are edging closer to selling their bus firm and are considering investing massively in the stricken League One leaders. The brothers are already understood to have knocked back approaches for McGill’s Buses amid rumours that one £80m offer wasn’t enough and that they’re holding out for £100m. If they succeed in getting a buyer at that price, the speculation is they will aim to increase their stake at Ibrox by investing about £20m. James, on the club’s plc board, and Sandy, who is chairman of the football board, have been building up their shareholding in recent months as they look to tighten their grip on the club. They are now generally recognised to be the powers behind the throne at Ibrox. The Easdales took over McGill’s in 2001 and, after moving back into the black by posting profits of £659,404 compared with a loss of more than £550,000 the year before, their turnover has almost doubled from £15m to £28m following the takeover of rival Arriva Scotland West nearly two years ago. These figures have made McGill’s an attractive proposition and it is a business the Easdales are prepared to offload as they have other interests, including taxi firms and private rental and commercial property. The jury remains out on the Gers’ board simply because little or no information is passed the supporters’ way and stories like yesterday’s in Express Sport that players had rejected chief executive Graham Wallace’s suggestion they take a 15 per cent cut in wages has done little to quell their concerns over the club’s financial position. Wallace, in fact, has declared there is no chance of a second administration but conceded the club can’t continue to run the way it is amid suggestions it is losing around £1m a month. And, even if the Easdales were to splash their cash, there would still be a need to rein in the general costs. But, if the Greenock pair put up around £20m, it would go a long way to easing the near-critical state at the club and, of course, help appease and win over worried fans.

Rangers: Manager Ally McCoist instructed to cut wage bill By Alasdair Lamont Senior football reporter, BBC Scotland Rangers manager Ally McCoist has been told he will have to make cuts to his playing budget. McCoist has been in discussions with Graham Wallace recently as the chief executive undertakes a comprehensive review of the Ibrox finances. Wallace told shareholders at the annual general meeting in December savings would need to be made. And the players' wage bill at the League One side currently stands between £6m and £7m per annum. A spokesman for the Rangers board told BBC Scotland: "The CEO Graham Wallace outlined his strategy at the AGM and nothing is going to deflect him from getting Rangers back on an even keel. "Graham and Ally are reviewing the football budget, as part of the overall business review and it would be inappropriate at this time to discuss any figures." The news comes on the day that three million shares worth around £750,000 were traded in Rangers International Football Club plc. The share price dropped as low as 24p early in the day before rallying slightly to close at 28.5p. That is a fall from the 90p price at the launch of the share issue just over a year ago. Earlier this week, McCoist signed off on a pay cut of around 50%, which he agreed to in October. And consultant Philip Nash has been brought to Ibrox to help oversee the financial overhaul.

Charles Green may have *exited Ibrox but the club still reverberates to the sound of his old cronies feeding at the trough. Yesterday we learned the identity of the person who sold 2.2 million shares in Rangers International Football Club plc – Richard Hughes of Zeus Capital, one of Green’s chums right from the start and a former commercial director of the club. You know that old stock exchange warning about how a share price rises and falls? Well, that doesn’t really apply to the likes of Hughes or anybody else who bought into the club at 1p a share. When you’re in the door at 1p then there’s really no way you can lose. The Rangers share price has tanked with a devastating speed leaving those who bought at the top end in a hole to the tune of God knows how much, but the only relevance of a share price collapse to Hughes is that his profit is not as large as he thought it might be. He sold up and walked away with a return of more than half a million pounds. Another one who has done very nicely out of Rangers, thanks to Green and chums. The steaming mess that is Rangers’ financial plight has now been dumped on to the desk of Graham Wallace, the Rangers chief executive. As an outsider, Wallace must be incredulous at the freewheeling ways of his predecessors, not just the way they sanctioned a first-team wage bill of £7.8m while in the Third Division (contributing to a financial picture so bleak that it made the eyes water) but also the apparent inability of some to accept that things needed to change profoundly. One of these characters was Walter Smith, a man who brought huge glory to Ibrox when he was manager but whose attitude to the finances, during and after his stint as chairman, belonged to the distant past when Rangers thought they had money, when in actual fact all they had was credit and mountains of debt, most of which they torched. At the risk of dredging up events of the past (the recent past, albeit), it’s worth recalling what Smith said in the wake of the Rangers accounts being published last autumn. Commenting on an operating loss of £14.3m including payments to Green of more than £930,000 with £825,000 going to Ally McCoist and more than £400,000 going to finance director Brian Stockbridge on top of that first team wage bill of £7.8m, Smith almost shrugged. He 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.” Why not? What makes Rangers so different that financial common sense has no place at Ibrox? Smith’s analysis was plucked from the David Murray era; freakonomics born of hubris. No common sense? He’s right, there hasn’t been. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be or that there can’t be. There must be. It’s just as well that Wallace has arrived and seems determined to cut costs. Somebody had to shake the club out of its economic time warp and bring certain people to their senses. It is estimated that Rangers are losing about £1m a month and that come April they will have just £1m in the bank. Around that point they will be going to the supporters looking for season ticket money for 2014-15, a support that they are continuing to refuse to engage with despite their lofty talk at the agm last month of some new spirit of openness. There hasn’t been any contact, unless you count a letter from a lawyer acting on behalf of some board members to a fans’ group. The upshot of the communiqué was that the Sons of Struth supporters’ lobby felt they had no option but to shut down their Facebook page. Somebody should be talking to the fans. Wallace, you can forgive, because he has so many other things to be doing, most notably speaking with McCoist about cost-cutting. The questions are obvious but the solutions are less straightforward. According to their website, Rangers have 56 full professionals or professional youth players on their books. According to Celtic’s website, they have now got 50, including their newest recruit Stefan Johansen. Wallace will, no doubt, be asking about this. “Why are there so many players here? How many are worth what we’re paying them? How many can we lose?” Why are there so many? That’s one for McCoist. In the summer he signed Steve Simonsen as his reserve goalkeeper. Simonsen is a fine goalie and proved as much at Dundee last season, but Rangers didn’t need him then and they don’t need him now. They have Cammy Bell and they also have Scott Gallacher, a 24-year-old who has been at the club since 2006 and who has played only a handful of games. For the less than arduous task of *sitting on the Rangers bench and, very, very *occasionally, covering for Bell in matches, why not go with Gallacher and save yourself the expense of *Simonsen? We don’t know how much Simonsen is being paid – more than Gallacher for sure – but whatever it is, it’s money for old rope given that his sum total of minutes played since joining Rangers stands at zero. It’s easy to envisage Wallace going through the Rangers squad and continually asking a simple question. Steve Simonsen – why? Emilson Cribari – why? Dean Shiels – why? David Templeton – why? Richard Foster – why? Steven Smith – why? Ian Black, on those wages, why? All of these, and others, are on more money than they could expect to get elsewhere and won’t be in any great hurry to leave. So, for now, Rangers are stuck with them because they can’t afford to make them redundant. This is the legacy of the club’s scattergun accumulation of players they didn’t particularly need to meet the challenge they were faced with. Namely, the Third Division last season and League 1 this season. Wallace is having to deal with the consequences of such financial waste. He is surrounded by “money men” at the club – Stockbridge, Ken Olverman, Andrew Dickson and the accountancy firm Active Corporate – but he has gone outside Ibrox for a financial advisor in the shape of Philip Nash. On one level that looks like more waste. On another, given the state of the club, you can understand why he’s looking for fresh thinking on the fiscal front. The incumbents have not exactly *covered themselves in glory. For years, Rangers celebrated men – Murray et al – who spent vast amounts of money and improved the team. The guy they should be celebrating now is the one who calls a halt to the financial waste and makes the club face its reality, even if his actions run the risk of putting him in conflict with his manager. There will be bleating, but only by those who are mired in the past. Those who truly conform to that much-abused description of “having the best interests of the club at heart” would say bring on the cost-cutting to stave off disaster. In trying to move on from the damage of the past, Wallace knows what the club needs to do. But it promises to be a tough and lonely journey for him.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/shares-are-selling-but-will-players-have-to-be-sold-as-well.23177405 The Rangers International Football Club plc share price has been falling steadily since the annual meeting of shareholders last December. Yesterday, 2.5m shares were sold at 24p, a new low (the launch price was 70p), with a further 250,000 sold at 25p, the largest single day trading volume in more than a month. At the same time as the share price has been falling, the chief executive Graham Wallace has been conducting a review of the business, with significant cuts expected to be implemented to bring costs in line with income. Here Herald Sport looks at the state of play at Rangers. Who sold and who bought the shares? We may not find out, at least for now. The shares were sold in batches of 1m and 250,000, so it could have been multiple sellers and, in theory, multiple buyers. Anybody who takes their holding above or below 3% needs to notify that fact, but it can take several days to be posted on the Stock Exchange. In total, the five transactions accounted for around 4% of the RIFC shareholding. So what is the significance of the recent share price drop? For investors, it means that they have been losing money, unless they were among the small number to receive 1p shares. Until yesterday, the volume of shares sold was small, suggesting that the price was falling because investors were looking to sell their stock but there were no buyers. The share price rebounded to 28.5p at the close of the market, but it is widely thought that the net asset value share price is around 25p, making that a significant value for the market price to dip below. Might a takeover be imminent? That is unlikely. The arrival of a buyer on the scene would push the share price back up. Investors would need to be willing to sell their holdings, although those who voted against the re-election of the board members last month - around 30% - may be less inclined to retain their shares. Private deals can be struck, of course, but Rangers' business model needs to be streamlined so any price would be discounted to take into account the need for further investment. What is the state of the club's finances? Wallace, by his own admission, needs to cut the costbase. Rangers are thought to be losing somewhere in the region of £1m per month, and Wallace is currently conducting a review of the entire business. He stresses that this will also identify areas requiring investment, but it is clear that cuts will need to be implemented first. The club expects to have around £1m cash left by April, but there are issues to address. Such as? It is not so simple as just identifying, for example, players who are peripheral to the team and telling them to find a new club. Emilson Cribari has barely played this season, but is believed to be content in Glasgow and adamant that he will stay until the summer. If he cannot match the wages he is on, there is also no incentive for him to leave. What about selling players? There are some who would attract bids from other clubs, but Lee Wallace, for one, is also adamant that he intends to remain at Rangers and has no interest in pursuing a career in England. David Templeton has not featured much this season, but would need to find a club willing to match the wages he is on at Ibrox. So how does Wallace reduce the costs? He might seek redundancies, although they would also require severance packages. Hard decisions may be made, but there are costs that can be cut on the business side. Is there no alternative? No. Rangers intend to seek fresh investment, but the business needs to be brought to an even keel first. A share issue is possible in time, and Dave King is ready to lead that fresh round of investment, but Wallace will not begin that process before he has redeveloped the business model. By then, he will also have identified the areas - such as scouting - that require investment. If costs are being cut, why is Philip Nash, a consultant, being brought in? Given that Wallace is a chartered accountant, that Andrew Dickson, the head of football administration, is a chartered accountant, and that Rangers have a financial director in Brian Stockbridge, a finance controller in Ken Olverman, and an accountancy firm in Active Corporate, another accountant seems superfluous. Nash was finance director at Arsenal and Liverpool, so knows the business of football, and it is conceivable that his remit is to source new revenue as much as contribute to the business review, but it may be Wallace wants fresh and independent analysis. So what happens next? More uncertainty, probably, with the share price and with events inside the club. While the transfer window is open, players can be sold or moved on, while other areas of the business will also be cut. Wallace faces a difficult task to balance the books without fundamentally affecting the ability of the team to continue progressing up the leagues.

It’s coming up for three years since Madjid Bougherra left Rangers, but despite leading Algeria to their second ever World Cup this summer and embarking on a new life in Qatar, the defender still has his mind on the Ibrox club. With his current contract at Lekhwiya nearing its end he’s targeting a return. Rangers might not have seen the last of “Boughie”. “My ambition is to go back to my favourite club, Rangers,” he explains. “If there’s no money, I don’t care. I want to go back at some point. It doesn’t matter to me what division they’re playing in. I’ll play for nothing! That’s how much I want to play for Rangers again. It would be the best way to finish my career.” The Algerian was an integral part of the team that won three successive league titles between 2009 and 2011, also getting his hands on the 2009 Scottish Cup and 2011 League Cup. They were the good times before the bad. “It feels like ages ago since I was at the club,” says Bougherra. “That’s just because so much has happened at Rangers in that time. It’s sad to see them where they are just now. “Over those three years we managed to keep the same team, apart from maybe one or two changes,” says the defender who made 81 appearances for Rangers. “It was the best atmosphere and best group of players I’ve ever been involved with. We had very good players and plenty of experience, so it was a shame that it had to come to an end.” The former Charlton Athletic and Sheffield Wednesday player still keeps in touch with a few of his former teammates, namely Maurice Edu, Salim Kerkar and Steven Davis. However, things ended a little sourly for the defender, or so was reported at the time. The offer of a new contract with Rangers was below Bougherra’s expectations, raging that the terms made him “feel sick.” “It wasn’t just that the contract wasn’t good enough,” he reflects. “There wasn’t the security in the offer that I needed, and you can see why that was the case. “I was happy that Rangers got some money for me before my contract ended. At first I wanted to stay as long as possible but the situation at the club changed. We were talking about a four-year contract but the club couldn’t commit to that because of the finances. It was sad for me when I had to leave because I loved the team and the city but it wasn’t possible for me to stay.” Interest from the English Premier League never resulted in a solid offer, and although the chance to move to Paris Saint-Germain or Russia presented itself Bougherra instead opted for a switch to the Middle East. “I can’t lie, I wanted to go to the Premier League. That was my aim after Rangers but there was never a genuinely good opportunity to do that,” he elaborates, despite managers like Arsene Wenger expressing their admiration for the defender. “I could have gone to a team near the bottom of the Premier League but I had no real motivation to go to a club like that. “After being at a club like Rangers you want to play for a team that can win trophies. It’s difficult to play for a successful team one day and then play for a team fighting relegation the next. It didn’t appeal to me so I started to think about different options.” While still at Rangers, Bougherra visited Doha on something of a personal scouting mission, checking out Lekhwiya’s set-up and the city. He was impressed. “It’s a great place to live,” he affirms. “There’s good weather, it’s quiet when you want to relax but there’s also plenty to do. For my family it’s perfect.” Of course, Qatar has found itself at the centre of much scrutiny since the 2022 World Cup was awarded to the tiny Gulf state. The ruling Emir has committed vast levels of resources to making Qatar a major player in the soccer world. So did Bougherra go for the money? “Obviously there is money out here but I don’t know what the fuss is about,” he responds. While the domestic division in Qatar might not boast the same quality as the top European leagues yet (Bougherra says the style is “very French”) the Asian Champions League is where Gulf clubs can gauge their true success, and it’s a competition in which Bougherra has made his mark, reaching the group stages for the first time in 2012. “There’s a project here,” Bougherra continues. “They want to win the Champions League here, which is what it’s all about over here.” But after two and a half years in Qatar Bougherra is now free to sign a pre-contract with another team as he enters the final year of his deal with Lekhwiya. The defender seems unsure of what his career will hold for him next as he steps deeper into his thirties, but for now his focus is firmly on the summer. Algeria’s place at the World Cup was secured thanks to Bougherra’s winning goal in the qualification play-off with Burkina Faso, which he describes as a highlight of his career. “I can’t wait. It’s going to be unbelievable, with it being hosted in Brazil,” he enthuses. But it could be Bougherra’s last bow on the international stage, as he plans to retire as Algeria captain after the World Cup. “In my head I want to finish at the World Cup, although I might make it as far as the African Cup of Nations in 2015.” Who knows? By then he might be a Rangers player again. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/madjid-bougherra-i-d-play-at-rangers-for-free-1-3265774

Albion Rovers trialled a 'Pay what you can' initiative this week and it looks like it was a success. Hopefully more Scottish clubs will take notice and try innovative ways to improve attendances. http://albionroversfc.com/?p=4368 http://albionroversfc.com/?p=4383 I doubt a similar idea could work at Ibrox but I'd like to see them experiment with lower prices in unpopular parts of the ground.

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/rangers-to-hold-talks-with-cypriot-athos-solomou-1-3263212 RANGERS will hold transfer talks with Cyprus international Athos Solomou next week, when the player and his agent arrive in Glasgow. The APOEL Nicosia full-back, 28, is due to fly to Scotland to discuss a move to the League 1 leaders and is free to sign a pre-contract agreement, with his APOEL contract expiring in June. Rangers monitored Solomou, who has both Champions League and Europa League experience, throughout last year and most recently watched him in APOEL’s Europa League group match against Eintracht Frankfurt last month. Ibrox officials will now hold face-to-face discussions with the player and his agent next week. They must decide whether to pay a transfer fee and sign Solomou immediately or agree a pre-contract for a summer move. Both parties will also discuss wages and contract terms. Solomou is a versatile right-back who can also play on the right side of midfield and is a regular in the Cyprus international squad. He was involved in APOEL’s run to the Champions League quarter-finals in season 2011/12, where they were eliminated by Real Madrid. He has played all of his career in Cyprus with Apollon Limassol and APOEL, winning both the domestic league and cup. After 11 years in his homeland, he is keen to move abroad and Rangers are favourites to secure his signature. Not sure what to make of this to be honest.

Billy Brown believes the time has come to allow Hearts to add to their meagre squad as injuries and suspensions mount at Tynecastle. With a transfer embargo still attached to the club while they battle to exit administration, Hearts were again unable to name a full quota of seven substitutes in Thursday’s Edinburgh derby defeat to Hibernian. Hearts have 14 fit players to choose from, with further places in the squad having to be handed to youths from the Under-17s. Brown questioned whether the sight of kids just out of school having to be called into the first team could damage the reputation of the game in Scotland and declared that “enough is enough”. He said that the sanctions on the club were punishing the wrong people, with former owner Vladimir Romanov now out of the picture. Brown said: “We’ve taken our punishment on the chin and as far as I’m concerned the punishment should end now. “We should be able to sign players now. Everybody speaks about sporting integrity and it is about time the ban was lifted. “It is not the people here that are at fault for what happened. The man who caused it has gone. “We have about 13 or 14 players to pick from and we can’t fill the bench. Jamie Hamill is suspended on Sunday and Scott Robinson will be suspended [later in the month]. “This isn’t a bluff. Within three or four injuries and suspensions we are having to put 15 and 16-year-olds in. “You tell me if that’s a benefit to Scottish football. “I think the time has now come. Enough is enough and we have to be given a bit of leeway.” http://m.stv.tv/sport/football/clubs/hearts/258929-billy-brown-enough-is-enough-hearts-transfer-ban-must-be-lifted/

"Like many within Scottish football, including supporters and other observers, we are surprised by the parallel conclusion that no competitive advantage was gained from these arrangements. “ (Celtic FC Statement) You curse you're luck. The dice were kind to you and you landed fair square on Park Lane having rolled the required eight, courtesy of a double 4. However at £350 this property is more than you can afford at present. Your next throw sees you roll an eleven where you safely pass go and collect £200 from the bank. You’re opponent meantime rolls a 7 and also lands on Park Lane. You can see from his finances across the table he is unable at present to afford the much coveted property. But to your abject horror he pulls out a Community Chest Card – Glasgow City Council/Celtic FC – and acquires Park Lane for the knock-down price of £175. Furthermore as he passes Go he collects a favourable £600 as opposed to your £200, courtesy again of his “exclusive deal” with Co-op Bank. “Competitive Advantage” ? “Sporting Integrity” ? “Financial Doping” ? “State Aid” ? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/markets/article-2514682/Co-op-Bank-slammed-cheap-loans-Celtic-Football-Club.html I await the social, and moral outrage that Celtic FC, courtesy of their exclusive and extremely favourable banking arrangements, have robbed small firms of credit facilities and overdraft extensions. I await Graham "Selective Amnesia" Spiers tweeting that he is quite comfortable that such arrangements were a form of “cheating” All it needs is for Donald Findlay to be appointed head of the SPFL Investigation into Celtic FC and their financial and land dealings. Whats that term...”what goes around comes around” http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22037966 Of course, should any type of investigation be directed at Celtic it will cause a considerable conflict of interest for one member of UEFA's Financial Fair Play Board – Brian Quinn, former Celtic Chairman. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/former-celtic-chairman-brian-quinn-s-uefa-financial-role-1-2386596 At least there will be a plethora of advice readily available for Mr Quinn with regard to dealing with potential conflicts of interest. His old friend, and Celtic Board member Eric Riley was a director at the SPL and the SFA for 10 and 13 years respectively. Furthermore Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell currently sits on the SFA's Professional Game Board. Did someone really say “Rangers are the establishment club” ? Conservative MP Mark Garnier is not going to allow this to go away, as he smells blood. So too do a number of Tories. It has been suggested that the revelations surrounding the Co-op Bank will reach right up to the higher echelons of the Labour Party nationally. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/22/ed-balls-links-to-co-op-bank Of course its perhaps purely co-incidence that the former Lennox Castle Hospital , with its 48 acres of prime real estate, was sold for £493,000 to Celtic Football Club, thus allowing the Scottish Minister to delegate responsibility for it's sale to the CEO of Glasgow Greater Health Board, as it fell below the £500,000 benchmark. Which leaves me 2 questions. (1) Was the sale of Lennoxtown Castle offered or advertised in the public domain ? (2) Does Neil Doncaster have Lord Nimmo Smith on Speed Dial ?

http://t.co/PSk0f6x5yf At some stage this week, Graham Wallace and Ally McCoist will sit down together for a meeting that will shape Rangers' immediate future. The chief executive wants to draw up and implement a football player asset strategy, and that begins with a discussion with the manager. They have the same aim, for Rangers to be successful on the field, and they need not have competing interests, since McCoist will have no more wish to spend money that Rangers cannot afford than Wallace himself. None the less, the complexities of the process and the dynamic at play will be significant for the club. By his own admission, Wallace needs to cut the cost base at Ibrox, as well as raising revenue streams. During last month's annual meeting of Rangers International Football Club shareholders, he said that the "cost structure is currently too high for the top division, never mind for the lower leagues", meaning that the business needs streamlined regardless of any commercial uplifts. This is a sensible and prudent strategy, and one that was critically missing from his two predecessors, Craig Mather and Charles Green. They were both courting public approval, but Wallace is a time-served corporate figure, and so brings the financial and business rigour that they did not apply. Indeed, any drastic cuts ought to have been implemented by Green in the summer of 2012, when the consortium he fronted bought the business and assets of Rangers Football Club plc in liquidation; that was the fresh start. Rangers need a coherent plan that addresses both short and medium-term progress, which is why the immediate issues Wallace will tackle cannot be considered in isolation. The extent of the required cost-cutting is unknown, but it is balance that is more important than simply reducing the bottom line. With Rangers potentially returning to the top-flight in 18 months, it would be a false economy to diminish the quality of the playing squad. There are players earning good money who have not contributed this season, either through the form of themselves or others; Emilson Cribari, David Templeton, or injury; Dean Shiels, Ross Perry, Kyle Hutton, but Rangers will also need to strengthen for next season's campaign. Wallace and McCoist, in their assessment of the squad's strengths and weaknesses, need to find where costs can be trimmed without affecting the strength of the playing staff overall. The manager and his coaches have agreed to take a wage cut, but any overall assessment of Rangers' football department needs to take into account the requirement for a chief scout to be appointed and for the youth development set-up and sports science department to be able to operate best practice throughout. The planning for the next two years needs to begin now, and that will be as much a part of the meeting between Wallace and McCoist as any element of initial cost cutting. As Wallace has acknowledged, once he has balanced the incomings and outgoings he will draw up a business plan to enable fresh investment to be sought. If Rangers are to return to the status that the club previously held, and which supporters continue to expect, then the requirement is not just to apply some commonsense to the business as it stands, but generate new funding to invest principally in the team. It is a question of priorities, but every decision made now has an impact in the coming years. That is where Wallace and McCoist need to work together, to ensure a strategy that strengthens the football department in time. Supporters will tolerate cuts at this period in time, but there remains a sense of the fanbase making its own assessments of the current regime. The inevitable rise in season ticket sales for the Championship will be borne without complaint because fans understand the financial necessity, but also because of the excitement that will come from the campaign to try to return Rangers to the top flight. There will be wariness, though, if there is a perception that the squad is not good enough to take that challenge on. These are the demands and obligations that every club faces, of course. From the summer of 2012, when a registration embargo loomed and Rangers were in the bottom tier, to last summer, there has been an element of improvisation to the club's signings. Rangers were restricted as they sought to add to the squad, and not least because the manager was never given a budget to work to. The working relationship between Wallace and McCoist is critical, and in a sense they are both under scrutiny; McCoist for the team's performance, and Wallace for the business's. He has already begun a review of every aspect of Rangers' operations, so it is not just the football budget that is being assessed. Rangers are, effectively, in the middle of the journey back to the top flight. Decisions made in the coming months will determine what kind of force they will be when they do return.

YOU can’t blame Ally McCoist for not wanting to do the sums. Too many of the numbers might add up to ten if the Rangers manager puts his mind to counting the cost of the position the Ibrox club finds itself in. Last week, chief executive Graham Wallace admitted that it would be a five-year mission to make the current Rangers competitive in the top flight. Which suggests there is little chance of the club challenging for a Premiership title much before Celtic should surely be homing in on a record ten-in-a-row. Moreover, Wallace stated that Rangers would need to scale the heights by living within their means. McCoist interpreted this as a top-flight Rangers operating with a £3 million playing budget while Celtic worked with ten times this figure. This illustrates the monumental concern for Rangers supporters and McCoist. If the Ibrox club and Celtic both live within their means, then the near £30m Celtic can generate from the Champions League puts them out of sight of any domestic challengers. It is a vicious circle. Rangers need Champions League money to mount a challenge to Celtic in sustainable fashion. But they can’t obtain that income because this very Champions League money puts Celtic on a different level to them. “The worry is Celtic are off and running with the Champions League money,” McCoist accepted. “That’s obviously a big concern. It would be wrong for me not to look at Celtic’s finances and not appreciate the gulf between the two, but what we need to do is concentrate on our own club at the minute. Celtic aren’t an issue for us at the moment. They’ve handled things well and fair play to them, but until we’re back competing against them then that’s when we’ll have to assess the situation. At this moment in time we can’t concern ourselves with Celtic. I don’t mean that in a rude way but they’re in a different place from us at the moment.” How on earth Rangers get to that place before Celtic achieve an unparalleled decade of domination in the top flight is what gives followers of the Ibrox club sleepless nights. “I understand 100 per cent where the fans are coming from,” said McCoist. “We’ve lost £50m-worth of players. We could argue about valuations but that’s what we’ve lost and had to replace them with free transfers. It’s not rocket science. You’ve got no divine right at the best of times to challenge for the top league, so when you look at the facts and figures you shouldn’t be challenging all of a sudden. But that’s not to say we can’t bring in some more youngsters and if that’s what it takes to move forward then that’s what we’ll do.” To plan to win a Premiership title with a crop of youngsters would be cock-eyed optimism, cautions McCoist. “You’ve got to get a blend. There may be exceptions but other than Manchester United I can’t think of too many teams that have had seven or eight youngsters come through and gone on to be a top-class European team. We’ve never, as long as I can remember, had seven or eight youngsters in the team who have come through Murray Park. You’ve got to get a balance. I think we’ve done fine in recent years when you look at the likes of [Alan] Hutton, [Allan] McGregor and [Charlie] Adam, [Chris] Burke and so on. I don’t think you’ll get too many cases like that Manchester United team. That said, it’s really important we get as many through as we possibly can.” And hold on to them. When the old Rangers was liquidated, the likes of McGregor declined to have his contract transferred over to the new company then formed. McCoist has had plenty to say about the fact that the keeper and other high-profile players “headed to the hills”, as he put it at the recent agm. But he was more conciliatory when asked what McCoist the player would have done in 1992, had Rangers gone bust. “I don’t know what I would have done,” McCoist said. “It’s the easiest thing for me to say that I’m a Rangers man but I don’t know. I’m not going to look back and start criticising people. I wouldn’t want to move back into hypothetical 1992 situations.” How McCoist must wish there was a Rangers currently enjoying the situation the Ibrox club did in 1992, though. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/latest/numbers-don-t-add-up-for-rangers-boss-ally-mccoist-1-3249510

I wrote the above paragraph a few weeks ago in an article which was published in the inaugural launch of WATP magazine. Much of course has changed during that time with the coming and going of the AGM, and the confirmation of our board of directors. Even as a fence sitter throughout all of this, I cannot hide my inward disappointment that Brian Stockbridge remains on the board. But perhaps in that regard I am being unfair to Mr Stockbridge as I don’t have in my possession the information which allows me to make an informed choice. I don’t know for instance whether he, in his role as financial director, was merely rubber stamping the overly generous bonuses previous board members had arranged for themselves, nor for instance what part, (as has been claimed in this overloaded propaganda war) nominee Malcolm Murray had in the setting of such bonuses. That will always be the case of course so long as the Rangers support remains dis-empowered and disenfranchised from the systems and processes I alluded to several weeks ago. But the system and process which determines the make up of the Rangers board has spoken, and furthermore it has spoken in a way which is democratic. We may not all like the results it has delivered but that, I’m afraid, is life. Of course, we can attempt to usurp that democratic process. and there has already been talk of boycotts with regard to season tickets and club merchandise, and I have no doubt such action will make those who clearly wield power – institutional investors – sit up and take notice. Notwithstanding the damage such boycotts would cause to our club, perhaps we should also consider the damage such action would cause to democratic process and what kind of “notice” would be initiated within institutional investors ? If the democratic process to elect a board is usurped by way of boycotts, a refusal to accept the decisions that process has delivered, do you think this will instil confidence in any future investment in the club from others ? Ask yourself this – would you invest heavily in an institution where your majority shareholding and the decisions you make relative to that investment, through proper process, can be overturned by the militant actions of others with a lesser shareholding ? I don’t like where our club sits at present, nor do I have complete confidence in those who are charged with taking us out of our current predicament and to another place. But given the choice between giving them a chance as opposed to damaging both club and destroying confidence in that democratic process – then I know which one I will choose. Season Ticket renewed.