Police Probe Wallace - Daily Record

[ian1964 10,416]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Wallace is a patsy,once he goes there will be another patsy....................then another.......then another.........

[forlanssister 3,050]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Wallace is a patsy,once he goes there will be another patsy....................then another.......then another.........

 

Tis an extremely rewarding job being the Patsy at Rangers!

[ian1964 10,416]

Tis an extremely rewarding job being the Patsy at Rangers!

 

Sad but oh so true

[der Berliner 3,247]

No, your point was that we should ask Mr Maher what he would do or have done differently. This is, as you must be aware, nonsensical, since Mr Maher is no more privy to the workings (??) of the club than you or I. How then can you expect him to provide a business plan going forward without knowing how and where things have been going wrong?

 

Oh wait ... he said the club is "still mismanaged" and if he thinks that is the case under Wallace, he should be able to say what he would have done differently? That's what I am asking for and there's absolutely nothing nonsensical about it. Obviously, all and sundry have a go at the board and give them flak for the shedding millions galore, without a) more often than not acknowledging that the current board is not at fault for these missing 60m and b) usually none of those happily tossing everything at them showing any sort of idea how to make it better. And that reduces someone's credibility considerably, at least in my estimation. BTW, I don't say that a) I have any answers or b) agree with everything the board does.

 

You will also have to explain how making a complaint about a possible offense reduces Mr Maher's credibility.

 

See above.

 

As to your point about Wallace not being aware of the actual state of the club, if he was not aware of the financial situation then he should not have made public statements reassuring shareholders about it. This is, at best, negligent.

 

Fair enough. I would expect that he had a fair amount of information handy, still, I would assume that you agree here, things with our club can change rather quickly.

 

I'm also uncomfortable with your increasingly defensive stance about this board. I would suggest that you try to take a step back and look at what you've just posted: you are now more concerend about the motivations of the man reporting an offense than with the fact that the offence may have been committed. That's not a healthy way to think.

 

No, read my quote and reply again. If find it strange that he comes up with this 4 months late. And I also question his statement about the club still being mismanaged, which I disagree with (at least if compared to what happened before December 2013). I on the contrary find it rather unhealthy that the current board is being treated like it was to blame for anything that went beforehand and it by default is assumed to work solely for the leeches that may or may not hang around in the background and is willing to shuttle any pound of ST money into some dark coffers instead of the club. That sort of IMHO overly paranoid mentality will sure bring the club down, no matter whether the current board actually does its job or not. If that is regarded as defence of the board, so be it. I am absolutely not certain whether Wallace and Co. have the ability and power to get the club back on the road of recovery, but at least it looks like that. If all that the opposition has to show for ambition is a blame game for deeds of old boards and owners instead of having a reasonable plan and vision of their own, I see no reason to join in with their fan club either. At the end of the day, I want my club to prosper again, no matter who will guide it there - at least for the time being. Thus, the board will get as much discontent from me as the "pretender/-s", not least when the latter deserve it.

[BrahimHemdani 1]

If Wallace didn't know if there was sufficient funds to last until the season end, he could have quite easily have said that. Saying things changed, or he didn't have all the information is not a valid excuse. In fairness, he was handed a car crash to sort out, but he hasn't exactly covered himself in glory.

 

If he became aware of that at some point after the AGM as he said in his interview, it would hardly be in the best interests of the Club for him to issue a press release about it at the same time as trying to negotiate additional facilities.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

If he became aware of that at some point after the AGM as he said in his interview, it would hardly be in the best interests of the Club for him to issue a press release about it at the same time as trying to negotiate additional facilities.

 

And what about the best interest of shareholders?

[chilledbear 16]

GRAHAM WALLACE was tasked with two main objectives four months ago when he agreed to become the acceptable face of a dysfunctional Rangers regime.

 

Priority No.1 was to bombproof the boardroom – and protect all of those inside of it – ahead of what had been shaping up as potentially devastating shareholders revolt in December’s agm.

 

He did so under a banner of honesty and integrity. Wallace was wheeled out on to centre stage and presented as a man worthy of trust.

 

But if it was true, if Wallace is genuinely a man a honour, then surely now he would do the decent thing and resign from his position before any more damage is done to his own reputation.

 

By continuing to speak on behalf on this broken board and its mysterious off-shore backers, Wallace is defending the indefensible as well as abdicating his responsibilities as the club’s CEO.

 

The second part of Wallace’s mandate was the one which mattered most of all to the long-term wellbeing of this business which has made itself the sick man of Scottish football. He had to raise cash – lots and lots of it – if Rangers were to somehow recover from the damage done by Craig Whyte, Charles Green and a long list of pillaging accomplices in between.

 

It was his job to put an immediate stop to this orgy of sheer greed and self-indulgence and to raise the funding which would be needed to put things right. Also, it was up to him to raise the general level of behaviour and to force the club to conduct itself in a proper, transparent manner. To, at the very least, stop insulting the intelligence of its own support.

 

Four months on Wallace has managed none of the above.

 

Now that may not be entirely his fault. It may well be, for example, that he is being hamstrung by his own directors and operating almost like a minister without portfolio.

 

If he was really in control then he would have marched Sandy Easdale on to the pavement outside Ibrox on Thursday and dismissed him, shortly after a BBC interview which breached all manner of stock exchange rules and boardroom confidentiality.

 

The fact he did not suggests Wallace has been weakened and if, for whatever reason, his powers as chief executive really are being eroded then he ought to remove himself from this omnishambles and blow the whistle on what’s really causing it.

 

If anything, with his disingenuous attempts to explain this board’s abject failure to provide the club with any kind of financial security, he has merely ramped up that air of contempt at a time when Dave King continues to sit in a corner on a bundle of cash – money which those running Rangers seem determined to resist at all costs.

 

Quite simply, if Wallace is still meant to be the acceptable face of this current Rangers regime, then his mask has slipped.

 

He almost admitted as much in yesterday’s papers when he conceded that, “Yes, our credibility was questioned” as a result of his own misleading financial forecast back at December’s agm.

 

Wallace rather bullishly predicted Rangers had sufficient cash in the bank to continue to trade in the short to medium term. The truth was they could not make it as far as February before bringing out the begging bowl for £1.5million of emergency money. If Wallace did not know how desperate the situation was in mid-December then it begs an obvious question: Why not?

 

At best this raises a huge doubt about not just his credibility but also his competence.

 

Also, there is firm evidence Wallace was indeed fully briefed by then financial director Brian

Stockbridge by the end of December at the latest when conversations began in the boardroom about the need to keep the depth of the club’s actual plight as hushed up as possible. Credibility and cover-ups are seldom seen holding hands around the boardroom table.

 

There are other issues which simply don’t sit well, not least the very vocal support Stockbridge received from chairman David Somers and also the Easdale brothers around the time of the agm.

 

This newspaper did more than any other to highlight some of Stockbridge’s more dubious dealings (remember the You’ve Been Framed video of Malcolm Murray and the would-be investor from Interpol’s most wanted list?) but still he found support from those around him until, eventually maybe even reluctantly, he was told he could remain at the trough no longer.

 

The recently appointed Wallace insisted Stockbridge returned a £200,000 bonus in full. And then it was announced he left with a £200,000 pay-off. What exactly was going on there?

 

Why was there such high regard for a man who could have been sacked on the spot without a penny for gross incompetence or gross misconduct? This was an awkward, messy start for Wallace and if anything the situation has deteriorated steadily.

 

His 120-day review was not just eight days late when it was released on Friday but it was also completely lacking in substance. If he had spent the last four months trying to court new money from new sources – such as Newcastle owner Mike Ashley for example – then he failed.

 

As for Norman Crighton, who heads up Wallace’s supposed investment team, he too failed to deliver quite spectacularly.

 

There was no rabbit pulled from the hat, just an admission the board still presides over a basket case of a club which is now so toxic it must ask ita support for season-ticket cash in Aye Readies. The cry was legal tender.

 

Wallace tried to blame this embarrassment on talk of a potential boycott of renewals only for Record Sport to show that, in fact, he knew Rangers would be declined the necessary kind of credit facility as far back as January. Long before any such campaign had been floated.

 

Now fans are being asked to hand over fistfulls of cash in order to repay those crisis loans? Did this plan really require 128 days of brain power? It would be laughable were it not so terribly sad.

 

Stockbridge among others was blamed for mismanagement. Curiously there was no mention of the role played by the Easdale Boys – who have been on the inside for almost 12 of those ruinous 18 months.

 

Wallace also spoke of “onerous” contracts being responsible for much of the £70m which has been blown in 18 months. He admitted jobs would have to be lost as a result.

 

And yet he declined to talk about his own “onerous” contract which it has been claimed contains another one of those 100 per cent bonus clauses, which became all the rage during Green’s big Yorkshire handling of the club’s account. If triggered it will double Wallace’s annual salary to around £600,000.

 

No, if Wallace really is all about the greater good then surely any such bonus would be forfeited in order to limit any redundancies.

 

Wouldn’t that be the appropriate and principled thing for any highly paid executive to do in these circumstances?

 

But wait, this is Rangers we’re are talking about. A club which, for the last couple of years at least, has demanded principles are left at the boardroom door.

 

That’s why it seemed so strange to so many that a man of Wallace’s credentials was willing to place himself in the middle of all this in the first place. And it’s why he really should do walking away.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/keith-jackson-graham-wallace-man-3467717

[Zappa 0]

GRAHAM WALLACE was tasked with two main objectives four months ago when he agreed to become the acceptable face of a dysfunctional Rangers regime.

 

Sports News Writer of the Year for the second year running and you can't even count from 1 to 5? Tisk tisk! It's now well over 5 months since Wallace was appointed Rangers CEO, not four.

[BlueMazza 0]

Have the details of the new shirt deal been made public? I heard some rumours the club were offering seriously reduced rates with huge advertising amounts,

[der Berliner 3,247]

By continuing to speak on behalf on this broken board and its mysterious off-shore backers, Wallace is defending the indefensible as well as abdicating his responsibilities as the club’s CEO.

 

Ahem ... when you read this time and again, you might come to the conclusion that the shareholders of the club are made up of such folk, and nigh all of them. Then you look at the facts and find ...

 

Laxey Partners Ltd - 12.74% (a known company)

Artemis Investment Management LLP - 8.42% (a known company)

River and Mercantile Asset Management LLP - 7.37% (a known company)

Hargreave Hale Limited - 7.07% (a known company)

Blue Pitch Holding* - 6.14% (the "big bad guys")

Miton Capital Partners - 4.83% (a known company)

Mike Ashley - 4.61% (well ... )

Alexander Easdale* - 4.52% (well ... Mk. II )

Margarita Funds Holding Trust* - 3.99% (the second "big bad guys")

 

So people go nuts about a couple of investment companies/trusts that have roughly 6% and 4% of our shares? When the one who might be regarded as the naughty boys are indeed the self-confessed hedge-fond folk of Laxey?

 

Generally, while there sure is reason (sic!) to ask Wallace a few more detailed questions about his first statement regarding the finances and the loan-deal a wee bit later (who IIRC, as he said at the time, was strategic rather than needed), the whole fuss that is made up now about this looks to me rather than another faux outrage at the board. Any half-slip up is being hyped up like there is no tomorrow, when most folk on either side of the divide is rather liberal with truths and facts anyway. And there sure is no surprise to see that Jackson et al jumps in on this.