It might be paranoia, it might be safety first, but it’s undoubtedly true. In recent days the heads of both the Supporters Association and the Supporters Assembly have voiced wariness about fans coughing up for season tickets.
I’ll be upfront about my support for the Blue Knights - it’ll save time dealing with the juvenility of “you would say that” arguments online later on.
SUSPICIONS ABOUT A WHYTE-SANCTIONED BUYER
We’ve always suspected that to make his scam work Craig Whyte would have a buyer waiting in the wings to buy the club and give him a payday. That might be unfair but it’s no more unfair than the questions asked of Bill Ng, Brian Kennedy or Bill MIller when they first appeared on the scene. So when the unfortunately-named Green strolls into town out of nowhere the alarm bells started ringing. Likewise when he didn’t seem to suffer the problems in dealing with Duff & Phelps that the Blue Knights, BIll Ng and Bill MIller have all publicly documented.
HE’S NOT ONE OF US
After all that has happened with Craig Whyte is it any surprise that the punter in the street wants to know chapter and verse on Mr X or Mr Y? Craig Whyte was a self-proclaimed Rangers fan so perhaps that goes for nothing - but I think the overwhelming majority of the support want the comfort of knowing the club is owned by Bluenoses.
YOU CAN’T MAKE MONEY OUT OF RANGERS, UNLESS . . .
You do a land deal. David Murray couldn’t make an honest profit out of running the club for 20 years so what chance anyone else? Forget the club emerging debt-free from administration (and we’ll come to that in a minute) we’re in the wrong league and the wrong country to operate at the level of playing squad and return big profits.
David Grier of Duff & Phelps was hawking Rangers around in City of London presentations as primarily a land deal so suspicions aroused.
IS GREEN HIS OWN MAN?
He’s been asked to his face if he’s the mastermind behind his own deal especially as he claims he has little money of his own due to two divorces. He’s never answered that straight. That’s his choice.
THE PROPOSALS DOESN’T HANG TOGETHER
He’s still trying to round up money and hoping he might have success getting overseas buyers to believe in a European Super League with Rangers as a franchise, of the G51 project, of Murray Park being re-zoned, of agents investing in players to sell on, etc. It’s all been tried or spoken of before and simply doesn’t match up with the reality of what can be done in the Area Plans for development in any of the locations where Rangers have land or the reality of where UEFA is headed with its competitions. Rangers fans who take an interest in such matter know that.
HIS PALS AND RECORD AT SHEFFIELD UNITED
Green goes on at great length about his pal Freddy Shepherd and how Freddy could put in £20million on his own - but only if he feels wanted. Football fans have long memories and the prospect of being owned by Shepherd with his mocking of Newcastle fans for spending too much on merchandise as exposed in a Spanish brothel in 1998 hardly fills you with confidence. LIkewise with the agent Paul Stretford and Mike McDonald, his Chairman when Green presided over utter chaos at Sheffield United.
THE CVA
There was a lot of relief that someone got through to exclusive bidder status with Duff & Phelps with a proposal for a CVA. But now that the CVA is being analysed it looks a lot less appetising than the relief of escaping from liquidation initially boosted it up to be.
When you look at the fact it consists of loans secured on property, etc, etc, then many are getting cold feet because it all points to Green not being confident he can complete and/or he does not have in place the kind of funding needed to finance the club going forward.
Duff & Phelps were in the press over the weekend claiming they had the funding in place to pay wages until the CVA cooling-off period is over. The mechanism for that is not new money from Green: it is players sales, season ticket sales and anything else they can get their hands on - read the CVA proposal if you don’t believe me - and if that money is not sufficient then they can ask Green if they can spend some of the money he has deposited to pay for the CVA. It’s a glorified version of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
WHAT GREEN NEEDS TO DO
At the moment he clearly doesn’t have in place the money sufficient to both buy and fund the club on an ongoing basis for the next few months, never mind years. He may be able to do that but unless he is utterly transparent about the level of unencumbered cash available and who the beneficial owners of the club will be - a lawyers office in the Far East is no more acceptable than a PO Box in the British Virgin islands - then fans will, I suspect, hold fire until things are settled and they are confident that they are not funding another financial black hole.