December’s AGM will of course be the chance for the usual shareholders to raise issues and concerns and for directors to state their cases and make the usual announcements and initiatives.
But more tellingly for many, it’s the reelection, or otherwise, of the four named RIFC directors that could be a topic for debate.
Ibrox Noise, of course, has already submitted our votes and wholeheartedly support John Bennett’s continuing tenure and that of John Halsted as well, but we are less happy with Alastair Johnston and Graeme Park.
We will leave the topic of Johnston for another time, but the one contentious name for sure is that of the remaining Park, Graeme.
While we’re pretty sure he will survive comfortably because these votes really aren’t about fan opinion but about hedge fund interests and company policy, nevertheless Park’s position on the board has been a topic of controversy for some considerable time.
As the remaining Park family members following his father’s resignation, Graeme represents, for us, an era that needs to be, well, for want of a better word, Parked.
We’re absolutely fed up with everything the club does being ‘presented by Parks Motor Group’ and seeing the logo all over the place.
Douglas’ era has been and gone – it wasn’t deeply toxic, but by the end he and his regime were very unpopular and change was needed.
We do not want to be unfair – he and his family did support the club and keep us afloat at a time when Dave King, frankly, abandoned the whole thing. Park did put numbers in and was certainly not an unsafe pair of hands. We are well aware he and his family are all Rangers people and they were here for 55.
But equally Park inexcusably used the club and the brand for his own business interests. Let’s be clear, the club would not have bothered with the cinch debacle if Park didn’t own his own motor group. That was down to his own business needs taking priority over anything else. It didn’t matter if the club actually ‘had a case’, it’s not a legal route we’d have gone had his business been newspapers or TV rental or anything else.
And it ended up (and still does) look silly and bad.
And Park jnr is a remnant of this nonsense, of his dad’s time.
We’ve all heard the Park jnr stories, and we’re not going to repeat them here, but suffice to say there is seeming evidence of some of his choices not being the best, or in the club’s best interests. And there is even bigger alleged evidence that he is a major reason the club and the fans suffered such massive breakdown in communication. That is something the new regime is fixing in spite of his still being there.
So you may have guessed Ibrox Noise have not voted for his reelection.
It won’t matter, we’re only one small group whose influence can’t bring down a director. It is also nothing personal, outside of his directorship we’re sure he’s a decent gentleman who’s never hurt a fly.
But our interests are Rangers and on that level it’s time for him to move on.