The Fog Reappears

Just when you think there is light at the end of the tunnel in this Rangers saga, the fog has once more enveloped the club, as much needed cost cutting measures within Ibrox have been resisted by Ally McCoist and his squad, and yet another propaganda war started between the current board, and prominent Rangers shareholders including Alex Wilson and Dave King.

It’s now the world’s worst secret that one of the ideas mooted by CEO Graham Wallace to Ally McCoist and Lee McCulloch at a meeting was that the 1st team squad accept a 15% cut in wages.

Unsurprisingly, “the players” , who were represented at the meeting by McCulloch, are believed to have rejected the idea out of hand

Sadly, in this circus we call Ibrox, that confidential discussion was reported in the Daily Record the next day, triggering a new wave of leaks from the club clearly released to undermine McCoist, including a copy of the training schedule for this week, which I won’t reproduce here but showed that there is a fine line in football between “professional” and “part time”, if time on the training field is anything to do with it

Next up was the embarrassing revelation that the players were lording it up in a hotel as preparation for the Forfar match.

With McCoist defending the decision shortly after, it was clear he was at loggerheads with the board

This board, or at least someone connected to it, obviously has little respect for McCoist, and the next leak, if true, detailed what appeared to be an internal Rangers email from in 2012 discussing McCoist’s salary demands, suggesting some rather distasteful manouvering over a suggested cut from former CEO Charles Green and current FD Brian Stockbridge, where McCoist is described as accepting a pay cut to 600k, then asking for a shortfall to be paid back to him.

It certainly didn’t show McCoist in the best light, and I’m sure that many other Rangers fans hoped that McCoist’s media offensive against the board this week would include a denial of the suggestions in the email, or an apology if the contents were true. To date we’ve had neither.

With the board’s offensive done, it is now the turn of defenders of McCoist, and attackers of the board to return with two different angles.

Defeated board nominee Alex Wilson has attacked the board for not leading by example and cutting the inflated executive salaries, while addressing the financial outgoings of the non- footballing side of the business. While I may have had issues with some of the vague statements from the nominees in the lead up to the AGM, this statement is incisive and fully justified.

Graham Wallace was asked the question by Tom English why the Executives weren’t leading by example, and Wilson asks the question again, because Wallace’s answer to English was disingenuous. He suggested that the salary review was across the business, however it is noted that there is no detail of any suggested cuts in other areas

Wallace, and the board, if embarking on a business wide cost cutting exercise have been cack handed and naïve in their approach, and are at this point, looking distinctly blindsided in their decision to discuss players’ salaries before concluding (or embarking on) the review of the non-playing business.

They should have been aware that with players and media friendly staff still friendly with those viewed as Anti board, it would not have been kept secret
They have not been helped that their own leaks, particularly about McCoist’s alleged salary manouvering, or the players’ training schedule have been confined to blogs and Rangers fan sites, rather than mainstream media.

Jack Irvine may be vindictive and “not to be messed with”, but if he is charged with blackening Ally McCoist’s name and turning the support against him in this latest propaganda war, then he is failing miserably.

As Dave King steps in with his own view this morning that the club should not be cutting costs, but should be investing in the team to compete in the Premiership when we get there, you begin to wonder if the credibility he has, given his genuine financial capability, is in danger of collapsing as he fails to recognise the deficit the club is facing with no additional revenue or investment to fill that gap,

Wallace has spoken previously about establishing sustainability before seeking investment, while King believes the investment is more urgent.

The issue of King’s investment proposal relying on existing shareholders diluting their shareholding if not investing more cash, while someone else invests in to the club is a sticking point, as my understanding is that current major shareholders are not keen to have their shareholding diluted. To those who paid 70p a share, or market value, rather than 1p per share, this and share value matters.

I’m no expert, but having the board at loggerheads with King, and having the manager conspiring against the board, and them conspiring against the manager is not a good place to be.

Meanwhile the club is still in deficit, with reserves dwindling, and no immediate signs of investment

My view is that this is the time for compromise between King and the current board, to ensure that there is a hybrid approach that suits everyone.

Perhaps the only reservation I have is that the size of the Rangers squad, and the size of our players budget to turnover ratio may be in the region of 30% as widely reported in McCoist’s defence, but that does not include a not insignificant sum for approximately 30 other registered players at Ibrox. 56 players is too much, and there is evidence of quantity over quality, so McCoist has to accept that his forays into the transfer market on behalf of the club are not returning best value for money, and he must show that there is both an acknowledgement of that, and a willingness to remedy it, or he is not the man to take the club forward

There is talking to be done at Ibrox, and some of it needs to be done privately, but if there is no “hands up I made an error” moment from any of the parties involved, then I fear for the future.

Bill.