There is no denying the 19th of
December 2013 is a massive weight on the minds of every Rangers supporter. This
Thursday finally sees the long-awaited AGM vote where shareholders will finally
have their voice and the opportunity to either endorse the existing Ibrox board
or to vote them out in favour of the so-called ‘Requisitioners’.
It is believed (or hoped) by many
that whatever the outcome of this epic ballot, Rangers will finally have a
settled boardroom, democratically voted by the majority, and the Govan men can
at long last put the vulgar business of bureaucracy behind them.
The problem is, quite simply,
that the vote itself is really not the critical problem. Neither is the current
boardroom. Nor, even, despite my personal criticisms of his ‘tactics’, is Paul
Murray.
The problem, pure and simply, as
always, boils down to cash, and the heinous lack of it.
The issue is this; Rangers are
bleeding somewhere between £200,000 and £500,000 a month. The IPO cash will run
out sooner rather than later and there is not the income to cover that when it
evaporates.
Consequently, unless either the
current board or the Requisitioners have millions up their sleeves, Rangers are
in dire trouble no matter who is at the helm.
Paul Murray and his namesake
Malcolm have claimed they have ‘investors’ ready but refuse to name them.
Charles Green would not name all of his but did name some, and got dog’s abuse
for the anonymity of the few. Consequently, why is Murray allowed to wholly conceal his and not
be accountable to that?
Either he has investors or not,
and if he does, it begs the question why he did not utilise them to outright
buy the club when the opportunity arose last year.
But, it all gets back to money.
Sandy Easdale and other directors have put cash in, but have not used enough
buckets on a ship which is slowly sinking financially. It does not matter if
they win the vote, because Rangers are losing cash.
Do supporters of Murray really believe he has investors ready
to sink £25M or so in? This is cash which is going into a black hole, cash to
be written off – to plug the holes.
Rangers are not making enough
cash compared to the overheads. Many point to the boardroom and how they are
‘leeches’ or ‘spivs’ who just take from the club – yet as I have already
pointed out, many of them have put cash in. Hundreds of thousands, in fact.
I also raised the points that
Stockbridge’s wage is the same as Riley’s at Parkhead, Mather was the
lowest-paid CEO in Rangers’ history and the other directors were paid either their
£29,000 fees per annum (£50k in Smith’s case) or were paid in actual shares and
no hard cash. Green got the normal wage for a CEO at £700K and was paid off at
£200K to stop him justifiably doing exactly what his former colleague Francisco
Sandaza justifiably tried to do to him after ‘unfair departure’; suing the
club. That one was settled out of court because Sandaza had a case. So did
Green.
But, this, all this, is rambling
away from the point.
Rangers need cash. It does not
matter if the board wins or Murray
gets his team on board, unless someone magically finds multimillions of pounds
sterling, the vote is completely void.
The one hope we have is that once
everything is decided, a settled boardroom will attract investment. Whether it
is Murray or Easdale who ‘wins’, we have to pray big money is coming in very
soon.
I do not want to think about the
alternative.