Todays events - a year in the making

[Tannochsidebear 2,320]

My take on the events of the last year, leading up to where we are today, and a preferred possible outcome.

 

Whyte has seen an opportunity to come in, get Rangers to self-fund a takeover from Murray, who was only too happy to get rid of us, bin the debt and emerge with a fantastic business opportunity.

 

He negotiated with ticketus to self-fund the purchase of Rangers. This is similar to what happened at Man Utd when the Glazers borrowed the money to buy the club, and arranged for the club to pay the loans back, with them only guaranteeing the repayments if the club could not afford to. Whyte borrows £20M+ via his other Company from ticketus, to pay off the bank and give some working capital as he has no money to put in of his own. His company will have given Ticketus guarantees ont he repayments, but the repayments will come from Rangers, not from his other Company. This is the same as getting a bank overdraft, but more expensive. Effectively the club has replaced one debt with another. Instead of LBG, we now owe Ticketus via CW's company.

 

CW has also arranged other loans and finance agreements to fund his other spending. He done a deal with Azure to split the costs of upgrading the food outlets and concourses. Azure paid us in cash for thier half of the cost, and we financed the whole deal through a finance house. This gave some more short-term cashflow to the club.

 

CW has had administration in mind from the start. The fact he has been happy to accrue PAYE/VAT debts makes me certain that this was the plan all along as this is a well known scam for small businesses to pull. He has been happy to accrue Creditors, take out finance agreements instead of using cashflow, and miss normal business liability payments as he has had no intention to pay these items all along.

 

Of course, he will never admit it or it would be illegal, as he can argue that the lack of European money this year, coupled with the lack of domestic cup runs and falling attendances has meant that his projected income is much lower than forecast, and costs have been much higher than expected due to the inherited liabilities, and blame all this on the events of today.

 

What Whyte did not bargain on was the media campaign to dig out the dirt on him, and the dirty tactics used by the old board, which has pushed this ahead much quicker than he anticipated.

 

As far as I am concerned Whyte has not put any substantial money of his own into the club, but instead has borrowed the money to take over the club, and if he can manoevere the club through administration and out the other side, dropping the HMRC pursuit in the meantime, he will be in a great position to profit from a sale of the club.

 

Some other points of administration include the fact that the administrators have to come in and look at every contract the club is entered into and see if they are still good value for the club. Therefore if the admin decide that the JJB deal no longer works for us, it can go. The same for Azure, the ticketing, media, and program/magazine contracts, together with anything else that is outsourced. This could be a way for Whyte to get rid of the JJB deal and create our own shops again if that is seen as a profitable venture, however in this economic climate that is arguable.

 

The best possible case scenario for us is that we come out of administration before we are banned from Europe for 2012-13, before another 10 point deduction for season 2012-13 kicks in, and without all the old debt to HMRC and other contracts. This also enables us to get rid of players, coaches, and staff that are on far too much money, and we can ultimately replace them with better value people. This is obviously horrible for any individuals involved, but a necessary evil to allow us, in one action, to cut our wage costs to a manageable level.

 

I am hoping that every single tim employed within Ibrox throughout the ticket office, admin offices, the training centre (renamed surely?), gets the bullet and takes their sniggering gloating faces to the brew. Not quite so funny now for they scumbags should that happen.

 

This will be a short period, probably no more than 6 weeks in administration, but the hurt and stigma will last an awful lot longer.

 

Another point to ponder;

 

Re the change of Company, this has already happened several times over our history, as it has at celtic, as every change of owner has a trading vehicle which ultimately owns the club. Fergus McCann changed the whole company at celtic and we dont hear anyone saying their history pre-1993 (or whenever that was) is obsolete. Nor will it be the case for us.

[Darthter 542]

can't disagree with anything there!!!

[Frankie 8,183]

A great summation of events.

 

As said elsewhere the fans must now demand to be part of any future board do the shameful events above can never happen again.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

When you put it like that it doesn't sound to bad now. (Tongue fairly lodged in cheek)

[GovanAllan 0]

Great post TB, everything you wanted to know about our mess but were afraid to ask.

 

Always wondered what it would take to get the Rangers support as one it appears the answer was CW we can at least thank him for that.