Keith Jackson: £17.5m loss that leaves Dave King with a seven-year Rangers itch

[ian1964 10,431]

“When you get to be chairman of Rangers you get to do it your way.”

 

True, David Somers will not be remembered for much in the fullness of time. Given the long list of sinister

charlatans who have darkened the doors of the Ibrox boardroom over the last few years, the oafish Somers hardly merits a footnote by comparison.

 

But with those unforgettable 15 badly spoken words he secured his own little slice of ignominy none the less.

 

Delivered, as they were, from behind a table on a hurriedly-assembled platform, in a windswept gazebo, his outrageous pomposity was almost drowned out by shouts of “scumbags” and “sack the board” from disgusted shareholders.

 

Yes, Rangers have hit a few rock bottom moments since 2011 but, in retrospect, last December’s shambolic annual general meeting was the beginning of the end of this club’s years of chaos.

 

On Friday last week, Dave King got to be the chairman of Rangers at this year’s AGM and the contrast in the way the business was conducted was, in its own way, symbolic of the recovery his regime has been busy overseeing throughout these last seven months.

 

 

From the tent section of Millets to a grand stage in Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium, Rangers have come a long way in a short space of time. This club no longer shows itself off in public with the arse hanging out of its trousers and for that King and his board should be congratulated.

 

Together they are delivering on their promise to fix a football club which was broken down on almost every conceivable level when they took control of it in March of this year. And yet there are huge challenges just ahead which will have to be confronted by the new hierarchy.

 

And, ironically, Somers is to thank for a great deal of them too.

 

It was Somers and another former director, Sandy Easdale, who scrawled their names across the gagging order with Sports Direct which could yet see King banged up for Christmas, if Mike Ashley and his legal team get their way.

 

 

Next Wednesday in London’s High Court they will argue that King should be imprisoned on a contempt of court rap for discussing his club’s retail division during a TV interview with Sky Sports.

 

Lawyers representing Rangers will claim that no record of the deal Somers and Easdale signed had been kept by the previous board and that Somers committed to it without first seeking legal advice or even the consent of his own board, although it’s not clear if one man’s buffoonery can be presented as an adequate defence.

 

The depth of Ashley’s dislike for King and this Rangers regime is obvious, not to mention his desire to grind them into dust. Previously, King and his fellow directors had talked of trying to meet Ashley somewhere in the middle, of shared business opportunities and of a need to find some common ground.

 

 

But while they were coming across all very conciliatory, Ashley was getting busy with his wartime conciliere. It was a serious misjudgement to believe they could ever make peace with this man and perhaps the penny dropped when King was advised that he may be eating his turkey off a tray with plastic cutlery.

 

The truth is Ashley has been hounding the Rangers board for some time. Ibrox has been bombarded with all manner of secret threats, some of which may become public knowledge if the High Court rules against the Newcastle owner and opts instead to overturn his gagging order.

 

Whatever the result, King and his men will still be left with the enormous problem of confronting Ashley who had them in thumb screws again last week when he demanded the return of a £5m crisis loan – money which changed hands in another one of those deals with Somers’ old board.

 

Again, there was a strong element of symbolism in King’s decision to raise the cash to pay Ashley back.

 

At a time when the blogosphere is dripping with predictions of another, imminent financial meltdown, this was King and co-investors Douglas Park, George Letham, George Taylor, Paul Murray and John Bennett, demonstrating some fairly sturdy wherewithal.

 

In other words, they are not nearly as skint as some would have you believe

 

No details of the amounts involved were given but the cash will be cobbled together in the form of a loan which will later be converted into shares.

 

King remains infuriatingly slippery when it comes to trying to nail him down on the size of his own investment, having previously been happy to boast of the £30m he had set aside for the job.

 

He still agrees that a sum of around that scale will be required to rebuild Rangers. Just not necessarily HIS £30m.

 

That said, he has spent in excess of £8m on shares and in loans since pulling up a seat at the table a year ago.

 

But having been smart enough to make a few quid over the years, none of these men will be in any doubt about the threat which Ashley poses. Nor will they be stupid enough to think they can outspend him on legal fees.

 

Somehow they’ll have to devise a plan for dealing with Ashley, who continues to suck the club’s merchandise dry.

 

During Friday’s AGM it was suggested that Rangers have been paid just a single dividend of £300,000 during the first three years of the club’s shirt deal with Sports Direct. The figure wasn’t denied by the board for, erm, reasons of confidentiality. But it was accurate nonetheless.

 

So that’s a return of £100,000 a year. Around a decade ago, Rangers were making annual profits of around £6m from selling jerseys which means, over the course of this tie in, the club is in the region of £17.5m down.

 

Shirt sales have tanked since then for a variety of reasons but even so, Rangers will continue to haemorrhage retail money until King and his allies find a way of escaping Ashley’s clutches.

 

By backing down on their original decision to keep hold of Ashley’s loan, they could also trigger the seven-year notice period which Ashley negotiated with Charles Green. It was, of course, the Record that revealed the existence of this enormous rolling contract, much to Ashley’s displeasure.

 

But unless Rangers can find a way of getting out of it, possibly through the courts, then the status quo will prevail until 2022 at the earliest.

 

All of which proves that Somers was not only insultingly condescending when he addressed those shareholders a year ago. He was also factually wrong.

 

Just because Dave King got to be chairman of Rangers, it doesn’t mean he’s getting to do everything his way. Unfortunately for him and the recovery of Rangers, Ashley is making sure of it.0

[buster. 4,808]

"Whatever the result, King and his men will still be left with the enormous problem of confronting Ashley who had them in thumb screws again last week when he demanded the return of a £5m crisis loan – money which changed hands in another one of those deals with Somers’ old board."

 

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KJ seems to be saying that the reason this was addressed at the AGM was a strategically timed demand for repayment.

[SteveC 150]

"Whatever the result, King and his men will still be left with the enormous problem of confronting Ashley who had them in thumb screws again last week when he demanded the return of a £5m crisis loan – money which changed hands in another one of those deals with Somers’ old board."

 

---------------------

 

KJ seems to be saying that the reason this was addressed at the AGM was a strategically timed demand for repayment.

 

He does indeed and this is one of those articles where you feel he knows what he is talking about rather than guessing. This reads very worryingly: "The truth is Ashley has been hounding the Rangers board for some time. Ibrox has been bombarded with all manner of secret threats, some of which may become public knowledge if the High Court rules against the Newcastle owner and opts instead to overturn his gagging order."

 

Still, no doubt the SPFL will step up to the plate alongside the SFA to defend a member club, eh?

Edited November 30, 2015 by SteveC

[der Berliner 3,276]

Just because Dave King got to be chairman of Rangers, it doesn’t mean he’s getting to do everything his way.

 

Wonder how long it took him to word that sentence together ...

[buster. 4,808]

He does indeed and this is one of those articles where you feel he knows what he is talking about rather than guessing. This reads very worryingly: "The truth is Ashley has been hounding the Rangers board for some time. Ibrox has been bombarded with all manner of secret threats, some of which may become public knowledge if the High Court rules against the Newcastle owner and opts instead to overturn his gagging order."

 

Still, no doubt the SPFL will step up to the plate alongside the SFA to defend a member club, eh?

 

If we take this as being correct then it's Ashley, as part of his general front, instructing 'SportsDirect.com Retail Limited and associated companies' to call in the loan. There was no specified repayment period for the first part of the facility but we don't know what other T&C's were attached and it must have allowed for the 5M to be called in.

 

Again if it is correct, it would seem obvious that the timing was to embarrass and cause maximum problems for Rangers in and around the AGM and as part of the general corporate & litigatious attack on the club.

 

I think the SFA and SPFL are limited in what they can do and that we should hope Newcastle get relegated, nearly as much as for us to get promoted.

Edited November 30, 2015 by buster.

[gisabeer 409]

Let's be sensible about court claims and discussion please... (Edited by Frankie)

Edited November 30, 2015 by Frankie

[Oleg_Mcnoleg 50]

The great hope is that that Green's relationship with Ashley will finally be revealed and the whole fetid shambles will be revealed to properly corrupt. The concern is that no smoking gun is revealed and it appears Chuck was acting on his own initiative when gifting Ashley club assets for luncheon vouchers--Ashley's a prick but not an idiot after all (Chuckles and company do appear to be idiots as well as pricks). If that's the case, what happens? We carry on boycotting anything likely to benefit the fat fuck whilst buying Lion Brand or whatever products whilst we wait for the seven year term to expire? Hope he gets bored and fucks off? Doubt he'll do that as he seems to be the sort of tedious arsehole who regards doing business as a trial of virility, clearly compensating for not being attractive to women, or secretly fancying men or his mum or some such. He's making it personal.

[MacK1950 2,240]

The big fat one has no respect for anyone at any level reminds me of Jeremy Clarkson with his ego.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

That Somers really was a fat fecking useless c@nt, thank feck he got his fat sloppy arse punted. As for the Rotund Retail Rat, he'll get his comeuppance in court.

[Germinal 27]

Not much of a revelation, I think 99% of fans knew that we were missing out big time on revenue from retail.

 

It's one of those situations, I think. where you have to accept that there isn't a solution which suits, and that you just have to work through it until you can change it. In this case, that'll probably be nearer the 7 years than 1 or 2 because, although there's a chance that the deals struck may be considered void if the signatories for Rangers are found to have erred in law (being nice for Frankie), the chances are that that process will run parallel to the SD deal - the law doesn't move fast, we certainly know that!

 

It's like this bomb Syria thing, if we don't bomb we probably leave ISIL nutters to attack us, and if we bomb, we probably create more ISIL nutters to attack us. Sometimes you can't win no matter what you do.

 

Only speaking for myself but I'm at the point where the money which could have been used to renovate the stadium, improve the team and so on just has to be waved goodbye, because I don't believe we're going to get it. Happily, investment from the board and fans in other areas ought to be enough to get to a high enough standard in our shite league to achieve some success, but we may need to play a seriously long game before we get back to paying large salaries for players.

 

So while Keith can fill the inches with tears over a missing £17.5m, it's not keeping me up at night. Them's the breaks, I guess.