I’ve probably been one of the most skeptical about the takeover of the club by Charles Green and his group. After what we’ve been through with David Murray and Craig Whyte then you’d have to be zipped up the back not to be cautious.
I’d come to assume that to make it all work Whyte had a mystery buyer up his sleeve who would swoop in at the last moment - and right on cue Charlie appeared much to the dismay of us who were backing the Blue Knights.
In the ensuing months whether through my membership of the Fight Fund committee, as member of the Board of the Rangers Supporters Trust or on a personal basis I’ve asked umpteen questions and invited the new owners to jump through hoops in order to prove their bona fides.
One by one they have ticked most of the boxes, certainly all the major ones. I’d like to see clarity on some of the beneficial owners of some shareholdings - it’s ludicrous that Stewart Regan at the SFA knows who they are but Rangers fans don’t. However, their shareholdings will be so diluted after the share issue that I don’t consider them to be a major issue.
Time after time I’ve thought “they’ll never do that, they can’t deliver in that time-scale” - but they have.
I would of course far have preferred to have the club run and owned by Bluenoses but that was not to be. By asking the right questions and the fans putting up their hard-earned for season books we have saved the club and ensured proper corporate governance. Going forward we have to continue to ask the same sorts of questions and get the same standard of behaviour. If we don’t it’s a red alert.
The affairs of the club n ow take place under a microscope - in fact thousands of microscopes - and every financial, legal and sporting move it makes is done under an unprecedented level of scrutiny - that can only be healthy so long a it remains rationale.
I’m not 100% sure of the level of investment the fans will make - having calmed fears I think the current directors may have eliminated the climate of fear and uncertainty that would have maximised a shares take-up as fans now think the crisis is over and that the money men have solved all our problems when you look at the level of corporate investment.
In business equity is king - control the shares and you control the company - get yourself some shares and take an active interest in the financial and legal affairs of the club, that is the only way to protect Rangers long-term.
The old cliche is that shares can go up or down - that’s true but I’m looking at it as making a wee contribution to putting the club back on it’s feet. Whether shares go up or down matters little to me - what I care about is that the cash from the share issue is employed in those area promised in the Prospectus.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to fully appreciate what history has given us at Ibrox. One of them said to me ‘we knew it was a big club, we didn’t realise it was a worldwide phenomenon’. That’s the sort of ambition for the club some of our previous ‘custodians’ didn’t have.
Read the prospectus from the club - https://www.rangersshareoffer.com/Prospectus.pdf - and make have a think. Take independent advice if you feel you need to.
And hopefully you’ll join with other fans and invest collectively to make our voices heard more loudly - check out www.buyrangers.org where you can invest for a minimum of £125.