Keith Jackson: Dave King's finest Rangers hour

[ian1964 10,514]

Dave King's finest Rangers hour and how we exposed the Mike Ashley deals that crippled club - Jackson

 

Record exclusives foiled a fat cat while Rangers chairman won his battle with Sports Direct chief.

 

There was no mention of it in Dave King’s victory speech on Tuesday afternoon.

 

But as the Rangers chairman announced the terms of the truce between himself and Mike Ashley – prompting a stampede on the club’s megastore – there was an even more significant reason for the club’s supporters to cherish.

 

It will all be ratified and made official in good time but Ashley, it appears, is not only loosening his iron-fisted grip on the club’s retail wing. He is also prepared to wash his hands of Rangers once and for all by dumping his personal shareholding of almost nine per cent.

 

And the moment that transaction is completed – when Ashley’s holding is picked up by fans’ groups and perhaps one other wealthy individual emotional investor – then King will have delivered on one of his key manifesto promises ... to pull up the drains and cleanse this club from top to bottom.

 

King has had his critics on these pages over the last two years or so. He has not reacted well to being questioned or challenged even when his various statements and promises are clearly contradictory and, in some cases, absurdly disingenuous.

 

But, regardless, let’s give credit where it is most certainly due where this long-running ruck with Ashley is concerned. King promised to fight this fight even if it took him until his last breath and on this crucial matter he has been as good as his word.

 

And now, as a result of his tenacity, when Ashley hands over his shares, finally and at long last a sustained period of internal chaos and mean-spirited ugliness will come to a peaceful conclusion. And, for a variety of reasons where the future for this football club is concerned, King will have scored a potentially game-changing win.

 

The removal of Ashley’s shadow will also sever a tie which links Rangers to one of the darkest and most dubious periods in the club’s history, when Charles Green threw open the front doors of Ibrox as if unlocking a sweetie factory and ushered inside all manner of greedy and grubby characters.

 

This list of individuals took it in turns to gorge themselves on whatever took their fancy. Waved on enthusiastically by a pair of big Yorkshire hands, they scooped up whatever had not been nailed down and emptied the club of millions upon millions of blue pounds.

 

And no one man brought a bigger wheelbarrow to this ram raid than the man from Sports Direct. He did not become one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs on the planet by failing to spot an opportunity when it presents itself. And Green was willingly handing this one to him on a silver platter.

 

Ashley, on the other hand, looked at Green and Rangers and saw a chance to screw them into the ground.

 

It was Green and his gang of cohorts who welcomed the Newcastle owner and his bulging wallet in like some sort of saviour and with good reason too. It did not matter a jot to Green that Ashley was eyeing up Rangers’ most valuable assets like a lion looking at a raw pound of steak.

 

No, all that mattered to Green and his group was that Ashley – one of the biggest beasts in the business world – was prepared to have his name linked to their consortium and, by extension, the share issue which they were about to bring to the market in London. If an operator as shrewd as Ashley saw the financial sense in getting on board then all the city was likely to follow him in. And follow, follow they did. To the tune of £22.2million.

 

What they did not realise, however, was that Ashley had already secured himself the sweetest deal of all by agreeing to give Green a sum of around £1m, months ahead of the December launch.

 

After that, whatever Ashley wanted, Ashley simply took. This newspaper led the way in exposing

a litany of secret deals which Ashley had struck with Green and which highlighted the grotesquely one-sided nature of his relationship with Rangers.

 

When he bought the naming rights of Ibrox Stadium for £1 we uncovered the detail and splashed it all over our back page.

 

We further infuriated Ashley’s camp when we revealed to Rangers supporters that the retail deal he had hatched with Green – a contract weighted in the favour of Sports Direct to eye-watering levels – also included a huge seven-year notice period. But he was only just getting started.

 

By the time he had shoehorned his own people into the Ibrox boardroom in an attempt to stay in control of the club, Ashley was pretty much running riot behind the scenes – plundering everything he could get his hands on from the club’s badges and crests to ownership of the pitch and even Broxi the Bear.

 

Ashley claimed it all as his own in return for a bunch of emergency handouts, some of which had to be forced through by a compliant board – in favour of alternative bailouts from far more friendly figures including Douglas Park and the Three Bears – in the final days and hours leading up to King’s successful coup.

 

It was at that point that Ashley’s long-term associate Derek Llambias decreed that this newspaper be barred form the premises. A banning order that we wore with honour.

 

There is an irony in all of this and it will not be lost on a great deal of those who have observed this car crash most closely.

 

Now that King is in control he has taken obvious exception whenever this newspaper in particular has sought to hold him to account and live up to his promises of open and transparent governance.

 

That is a dangerous, unhealthy form of leadership which smacks of a dictatorial approach. And it has caused him to clash with more than just Ashley and even the Daily Record. His ongoing conflict with the takeover panel provides the most potentially serious evidence of a combative streak which can sometimes do more damage than good to the best interests of his football club.

 

But not on this occasion. Where the removal of Ashley is concerned, King’s stubborn dog-with-a-bone approach has proved absolutely crucial.

 

He might remain an absentee chairman for the rest of his time in charge. He might even miss more matches than he’ll ever attend. But, even so, Rangers may never claim a more vital victory than this.

[StuGers 477]

Wow, what a horrendous arse-kissing embarrassment.

[boabie 230]

Does Jackson not remain banned from Ibrox ?

It all sounds like weasel words to me.

[pete 2,499]

Exclusives my ass. Most of that info was on FF and here over the last 2 days. All he has done is make a story of it putting a feather in the Records hat.

[pete 2,499]

Does Jackson not remain banned from Ibrox ?

It all sounds like weasel words to me.

 

Yes he is and it is hurting so to see.

[trublusince1982 243]

Would prefer we didnt support this paper by spreading its voice.

[stewarty 1,896]

The trouble with some of the stuff that Jackson ran with, was not that it was unfair to hold up to the light any issues we had, for there have been many, it was the fact that he acted as a cheerleader for our detractors who love nothing more than to stick the knife in whether justified or not. And it often smacked of a personal agenda given the widely reported fall-out with DK personally.

 

I remember him jumping on the "where's the £30m" stuff after a while. Now whilst it was perfectly valid to question our long term financial strategy and how we would bridge the obvious gap with our rivals, the way those words from DK were twisted from day 1 of the regime change was as clear a sign as any that our detractors love nothing more than to manufacture controversy.

 

We can argue about whether DK is the best public speaker or perhaps says more than he should on occasion, but given the way all of the off-field matters are starting to come together, I think its churlish of Jackson to not at least acknowledge that some of his witterings were also misjudged.

Edited June 23, 2017 by stewarty

[lenny3k 531]

That whole article just sounds like...

 

"I want credit, I want credit, I want credit, "

[MacK1950 2,258]

Total a******e of a man now trying to claim credit for his rag by saying they helped bring fatman down.

[26th of foot 5,902]

Oh dear, the Record apes the Sun, 'It was us what won it'.

 

Still, at least the Record are reporting the happenings of the last few days; whereas BBC Radio Scotland have ignored events.