As the battle for hearts and minds of Rangers fans steps up this morning between Dave King and the current board, it is still mired in smoke and mirrors, which makes any decision from the Rangers support over what to do very difficult.
I suspect that Rangers fans will need to keep a record of the public proclamations and statements from both the current board, and from Mr King.
The problem for independent supporters is that there are so many Stakeholder groups claiming to represent the best interests of the club, from the current board, to King, to the Rangers FiRST movement, to the newly formed Union of Fans, that claims to represent the Rangers Supporters Trust, Assembly, Association, Blue Order, Union Bears and Sons of Struth.
The fact that the substantial groups in that “Union of Fans” here have not yet consulted their members before asking them to support a campaign not to re-new Season Tickets is largely overlooked by those pushing their agenda to force the current board out and force Dave King/Paul Murray IN.
The latest move by King is in response to the loans provided by Sandy Easdale and claims from Rangers CEO that the club had been in dialogue with King
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/graham-wallace-qa-rangers-chief-3181015
To be absolutely precise, these are the quotes from Wallace in the interview with Keith Jackson
“KJ: Haven’t you created a potential problem with other shareholders or would-be
investors who might ask why they weren’t invited to make a similar loan? And I’m talking here specifically about Dave King.
GW: The board has had a dialogue in recent weeks with Dave King. He has not been rebuffed by the board. He is not currently a shareholder. He has indicated he’d be an interested participant in a future equity raising at the appropriate point in time. Our shareholder base has also expressed willingness to invest in fresh equity.
Dave King has not come to the club with an offer, other than an interest in participating in a future equity.
KJ: Just to be clear, are you saying Dave King has not offered the club short-term funding?
GW: He has not done that, no. Dave is not a shareholder and he has not made the club any offer of financial assistance. That’s not a criticism of Dave King. I have not met him but as a board we have had some dialogue to try to understand his intentions because there has been a lot of talk about his interest in investing. There has been no other proposal made by him at all.”
Note that Wallace only mentioned King when challenged specifically about him by Jackson
While King released an official statement, and was quoted in The Scottish Sun as saying “Mr Wallace has never spoken to me or even attempted to communicate with me in any form whatsoever”
The Sun reported that King would release a statement that would detail him offering a £1M interest free loan to Rangers that was rebuffed by the current board
Note that in his official statement, King never claimed to have offered any such loan
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dave-king-official-statement-rangers-3185424
Rangers then released a statement on their website stating that the claims within the Scottish Sun were inaccurate. All the evidence would suggest that The Scottish Sun’s report of events bears little resemblance to either King’s position, or the position of Somers’ statement, which simply re-stated what Wallace said in the interview with Jackson.
The General perception across the support is that King offered an interest free loan that was rebuffed by Rangers in favour of the Laxey loan, due to the Sun’s reportage, and some hints on Twitter from prominent supporters close to Paul Murray.
While the usual suspects that head up various fan groups cover the well work ground of demanding board change, the response from the club to the support has been weak, and not of the substance that the wider fan base needs to make an informed judgement to continue to support the team by renewing Season Tickets, and to ignore calls for change.
Frankly, the longer they leave it the less credible they look, and the more credible King looks, whatever fans’ movement he chooses to further his aims.
Even if fans’ groups conduct themselves in a manner that doesn’t befit the Rangers way, and resort to lying, smearing and propaganda about the current board, frankly, if the Board cannot convince the whole support that the small band of activists are barking up the wrong tree, then we should all be joining the Anti board movement and demanding change.
It really is that simple
The concept of listening to fans via the “Ready to Listen” banner promoted by the club recently should be the reverse. The club should be ready to talk.
If the club is being managed properly, has proper governance in place, and has a plan to both be lean and be able to grow income streams, then the time to tell us in detail is right now
If the current board have run out of ideas and are struggling to create a workable business plan that will return Rangers to the top of Scottish football, then they should resign and make enough noise that Blue Pitch, Margarita and company have no option but to sell up to King
This constant battle and negativity is damaging the club and impacting our ability to recover as quickly as we need to.
Those custodians of the club have it within their gift to tell us.
What’s stopping them?
Bill
No comments:
Post a Comment