Ibrox should settle for mediocrity. Walter and Super
Ally are ambitious men and their ambitions will only
be realised if the proper resources are made available
to them.
But for some strange reason, there is no dynamic
individual beating the drum for Rangers within the
business community. For much of the past decade,
Murray and Bain have been focused on reducing our
levels of debt and have just about succeeded in
reducing it to a manageable figure. So where do we go
from here?
As a brand name (I hate that term!) Rangers still have
huge appeal and it is high time an energetic marketing
strategy, the likes of which saw us race streets ahead
of our rivals before the asset-stripper did his worst,
was put into operation and our club once more realised
its full potential. We have a lot of ground to make
up on our 'friends' from the other side of the city so
our club has got to make a conscious decision: Do we
want to compete...or do we let them blaze an exciting
and lucrative trail on their own? Tick-tock,
tick-tock.
Step Two: DOING THE BUSINESS
Football finance isn't rocket science. On field and
off-field matters are inter-dependant, with the team's
success (or otherwise) creating opportunities for
commercial activity which, in turn, should make more
money available to the manager to enable him to
further improve the team which then generates even
greater commercial potential. Aye, already I can hear
you saying: 'So where did we get it wrong?'
Well, the creaming off of so many money-making
sidelines to MIM companies robbed the Rangers of so
much. Furthermore, as we look to the future, the
challenge facing any new marketing whizzkid is to tap
back into the avenues which have been closed off to
the club. All money generated by Rangers should be
reinvested in the club, rather than fattening the
balance sheets of subsidiary operations.
Over the past week or so, there has been much talk
about the potential of the Burnside consortium's
takeover bid. The seriousness of the Ulsterman's
interest in Rangers will only become clear in the
fullness of time but should our club sit back and
await further developments - a death wish IMHO - or
does the Minted One have any intention of raising
Rangers' profile within the business community to once
more make association with the club desireable?
As the title of this series of articles suggests, time
is not on our side. Every day which passes, with no
positive steps being taken, drags us one day further
down the road to ruin. And each day lost pushes our
recovery a further day into the distance. When Martin
Bain and others take tea with Liewell and Quinn at
Breezeblock Boulevard this weekend, I sincerely hope
they are sharp enough to pick up on the sly wee digs
which are sure to come their way.
A year ago, we were the ones with the Champions League
dosh, Septic didn't get as much as a ha'penny out of
European football (thanks again Artmedia!). But they
did something about it, tapped into the
Smelltic-minded communities all over the world, while
we did absolutely nothing! Whatever happened to our
Champions League jackpot, Sir David? One thing is
certain, there is no way Rangers are capable of
bringing about a similar turnaround a year from now.
For things to change, mindsets within Ibrox have to
change and that means Rangers once more featuring high
on Mr Chairman's business priorities. If he has any
plans to make it happen, he is certainly keeping them
close to his chest. The message booming out from his
ivory tower is that we just don't matter anymore and,
when such a cancer is allowed to spread, our future
grows bleaker and bleaker.
But would Walter Smith and Ally McCoist really have
put their reputations on the line by returning to such
an unambitious club? I sincerely hope promises were
made and, should these promises be broken, I'd like to
think both men would have the integrity to walk away
and make it clear why they have done so. My own
suspicion is that a sell-out is high on Minty's
wishlist and, even before the Burnside rumours began
to circulate, he had an exit strategy formulated, with
Walter promised much of the proceeds to get the team
moving in the right direction again. We wait and
wonder.
For now, we can only hope common sense prevails and
somebody, somewhere sees the true value of Rangers.
Early in the Souness era, Football Focus (or was it
Saint & Greavsie?) did a feature on Rangers and they
highlighted how all the cash from catering,
publishing, marketing etc. was ploughed back into the
team. Our club was held up there as the perfect
operation and, with English football in turmoil, still
suffering the post-Heysel ban, they were urged to use
Rangers as the role model as they sought to rebuild
the credibility of the game South of the border.
Of course, this was during David Holmes' reign, when
every penny generated was earmarked for the team. The
arrival of Murray and his Azure, Response, Carnegie
operations have combined to seriously deplete any flow
of cash into Rangers and, having sold off the retail
arm to JJB Sports, one has to wonder what any new
owner will get for his investment. As I see it, he
will get the stadium and, um-er, thats it.
So something has to be done to pull these sources of
income back into Rangers' ownership. I trust such an
measure will feature prominently in any potential new
owner's negotiations but, for now, we have to find new
money and there simply isn't a lot about, especially
in the mickey mouse settling of Scottish football.
Hopefully, UEFA Cup progress will result in the till
playing a nice tune and the expatriate communities of
America, Canada, Australia, South Africa and elsewhere
surely have to be brought on board. They cherish any
link with home and, as a sizeable chunk of them are
Rangers fans, there is a market to be utilised.
But our club always seems to have been slow to make
the most of such opportunities. Back in 1995 I had
the good fortune to be on tour with the Gers in
Denmark and, thanks to Brian Laudrup's presence, there
was so much interest in our club. Similarly, Claudio
Reyna was USA captain during his time at Ibrox and we
had a massive Dutch colony during Tricky Dicky's time
in charge. Yet none of these markets was fully
explored and we now have the nonsensical situation of
Sellick muscling in on what should be Rangers
territory with the signing of Gravesen and him with
the daft name. It is nothing short of negligent that
we failed to capitalise on such possibilities.
Back in the good old days, midway through our
nine-in-a-row years, I recall having a discussion with
some of the Manky Mob. They were going crazy about
the fiddling going on with the Kelly-White-Grant
families, while the Gers were coining it in from all
angles, and I made the point that there was no good
reason why Ra Sellick should be in such a mess. Our
society is polarised so clearly that any measures
which works for Rangers should, if aimed at the other
side of the fence, work for Septic. The same applies
today, where they are exploiting every possible
Sellick-minded link, while we sit back and do hee-haw.
Sure, we laughed when they toddled off to Poland,
Japan and America for pre-season humpings but who is
laughing now? They grabbed the cash, Gordon The
Garden Gnome has got his share of it and, as they
pocket more dough from the Champions League and
prepare to wrap up the SPL title before the split,
there is every justification in the arrogance emitting
from their place. Our reluctance to go out there and
grab our slice of the market just makes it all so much
easier for them.
What makes it even more annoying is that it doesn't
have to be this way. Business is Murray's game, he
thrives on making deals but, sadly, while he is well
clued-up on the comings and goings of the property
market and his minions are hard at work generating
income for Response Handling and other MIM off-shoots,
Rangers are standing still. Indeed, we seem to be
jammed in reverse gear and I simply cannot understand
why such a hard-nosed businessman allows such a sorry
state of affairs to prevail. He can hide behind the
slump in Rangers' fortunes as a team by heaping the
blame onto various managers and players but the steady
decline in our performance as a business can only
reflect badly on him.
It amazes me that a man with such an inflated ego is
prepared to be associated with letting a potentially
thriving business wither. Murray does not like to be
associated with failure, as was shown by his rapid
departure from the newspaper business following the
'Sunday Scot' flop, so what legacy does he hope to
leave at Rangers? He has the clout to throw funny
money at the club without making too big a dent in his
personal fortune and he would then be remembered as
the man who took Rangers on to an exciting new level.
But he also has the pigheadedness to sit back and do
nowt, to punish Rangers and Rangers fans for every
attack which appeared in Follow Follow and each nasty
post on the FF Messageboard and for that he will be
remembered as the man who drove our club into the
ground.
I fear he is more in tune with the anti-Rangers
elements in Scottish society, those who delivered his
knighthood, than us insignificant others who, through
our support of Rangers, have lined his pockets very
nicely over the years. Why can't he come clean, tell
us his plans, generate interest in the club and maybe
even see his selling price climb?
Years of mismanagement, complacency and downright
negligence have us standing on the brink...every
moment of indecision damages the club and makes
recovery a bit more difficult.
LITTLE BOY BLUE
Next: IMAGE AND IMAGINATION
What can be done to enhance and protect Rangers'
image?