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Just watched the 17 minute “away days” film about last night on Rangers tv. Absolutely top class insight, no commentary, just great filmwork and editing. Worth the fiver a month just for this. Saturdays wasn’t too shabby either!

Sportsound discussed our game for a couple of minutes again on Thursday night before spending the rest of the broadcast discussing all things Sellick. Sick of them. Discovered Go Radio which to me seems a good alternative to the BBC. They have Barry Ferguson on 3 times a week. They spent the majority of the broadcast on both Thursday and Friday talking about Rangers. https://thisisgo.co.uk/shows/the-go-radio-football-show/

The chances of picking up the virus during a game are minuscule.

A really interesting interview from Chris...

Don't under estimate the hard work this lad does for us folks. Cheers @blueflag

Therein lies the problem.

Rangers Q&A: Stuart Gibson on £5million share purchase, future Ibrox investment, becoming a director and Gers' finances Exclusive by Christopher JackSenior Rangers Writer A sense of adventure and a shrewd business brain has taken Stuart Gibson from Paisley across the world. The Far East is home for Gibson today, but his bonds with Glasgow are now financial as well as emotional following his £5million investment in Rangers. The co-founder and co-CEO of logistics platform ESR, Gibson became the fourth largest shareholder in his boyhood heroes this month when he secured an 8.27 per cent stake as part of a rights issue that raised £8million. The launch of ESR on the markets in Hong Kong last year was worth around £1.3billion and now Gibson is the latest money man to join the strong Ibrox investor pool. In an exclusive interview with Herald and Times Sport, he reveals the details and motivations behind the deal that has made him a key financial figure at Rangers. COULD YOU TALK ME THROUGH THE TIMELINE OF YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN RANGERS? DID YOU GO TO THEM OR DID THEY APPROACH YOU? SG: When we did our IPO in Hong Kong, the lead IPO investment bank was Morgan Stanley and the lead investment banker was George Taylor. We did a roadshow and that started in Asia, went through Europe and went to Boston, New York, Chicago, and in that 21 days you are basically having breakfast with these people, having lunch, having 20 meetings a day. You have dinner at night and a drink in the bar before you go to bed and you are flying with them. It became a very accelerated and intense relationship. I knew who George was because of the Three Bears (George Taylor, George Letham and Douglas Park) background and knew who his father, Sir Teddy Taylor, was from back in the Thatcher era. I had an idea who George was but in that three weeks that we spent on the road, you get to know somebody. I think George could sense that the IPO was going to actually work and that is when he started hinting and saying ‘would you like to be part of the future of the club?’ That is when the conversation started. That was probably last July when we started it and we had a good IPO in the November. I said to him ‘yeah, put me down for £5million, just to see how I get on with the club and how the club gets on with me’. The world fell off a cliff at the beginning of March, which was round about the time I was supposed to stump up the cash. It just wouldn’t have looked right, for a newly listed public company, for one of the founders and CEOs to be chucking money at a football club. I politely asked them if we could defer it until things normalise a bit and the club were very understanding. I had signed a commitment to them and they said ‘sure, everyone is in the same boat, let us know when you are ready’. Things did start to normalise a couple of months later so I think by May I said ‘I will put in £1million now as a gesture of my faith going forward in this’ and they asked what the timeline was for the balance and the other £4million. I said it was probably going to be closer to the third quarter. Things normalised, it was going well with the business. We had been having a great year but the public markets and share prices went down because people were taking money out of the market. Things are more normal now so I felt confident enough with the way that things were going that I could go back and say ‘OK, I am ready to fulfil my commitment’ and that is what I did three or four weeks ago. DO YOU SEE THE £5MILLION AS THE LIMIT OF YOUR INVESTMENT OR WILL THERE BE FURTHER MONEY COMING FROM YOU DOWN THE LINE? SG: Probably there will be. There are a couple of factors involved there. One is my wife’s tolerance, to be quite honest! It is a strange conversation to have with a Japanese wife about why you want to put sums of money into a football club that she doesn’t know much about. But she is very supportive, she has been to Ibrox with me four or five times in the last year and she has met everyone that she needs to meet at board level and in the club. We have always been treated really well. That is one factor. But, to be honest, it is not really a case of me deciding ‘look guys, I want to step up and increase my shareholding’. It is when the club ask if I would be interested in a new share issue. I couldn’t go to the club tomorrow and say ‘look, I want to double up and I want to own 15 or 16 per cent’. It doesn’t work like that, because for that to happen then someone has to sell. From what I know of the board, nobody wants to sell. The board has been through its turmoil in the last ten years, but the board that we have in place now, there is nobody that is thinking now or will contemplate in the future selling. And that is very much the way that I feel as well. The board would have to have a meeting and decide they were going to have a new share issue and, depending on what they needed and when they needed it, then, yes, I would definitely consider it. But it is not really for me to say ‘look, I want to double up’ because that is not on the table to be quite honest. It is what they need and when they need it and if I am in a position to help then I probably will. IS A BOARD POSITION SOMETHING YOU WOULD LOOK FOR OR CONSIDER SO THAT YOU HAVE A SAY IN THE DECISION MAKING? SG: I am just happy to get lunch in the Blue Room to be honest! It is very different from when I used to go and watch Rangers, trust me. I used to go in the father and son gate and my dad would be throwing me over. I don’t think I am qualified, to be honest. It is a different universe for me. It is one thing being on the terraces, or in the stands nowadays, and roaring your heart out, but it is another thing sitting making commercial decisions and trying to be dispassionate about it as well. I have met all the board, having lunch in the Blue Room or at various games. I met Dave King when I was over with the family for the Bayer Leverkusen game, which was the last flight I made to Scotland. I met Dave on the night of the game and, by coincidence, we were on the same flight to London the next day. It was just family stuff, I had the twins with me at the time so there was no business. It was just a ‘welcome to the club’ kind of thing. I have met Douglas Park, I have met Alastair Johnston and there is another shareholder in Hong Kong, Barry Scott, that I have met a few times, and Julian Woldhart. To be honest, I am happy with the composition of the board. You have got some lifetime Rangers fans in there with their hearts in the right place and they will make sure that some of the atrocities that happened ten years ago will never happen again. And you have got some fairly unemotional, completely objective business heads in there, like Julian, who want to see the club have commercial success. That has to translate into winning stuff on the pitch, which puts money on the balance sheet, which means we can put more money on the pitch. I don’t think I can offer anything to be quite honest. I am going to take a few years to get to know the board a bit better and hopefully they will like me and we will continue to get along. With regards to joining the board, I just don’t feel qualified, to be honest. Putting in some money shouldn’t buy you a seat at the table. I am not in the room and at the table. I obviously hear stuff through the two Georges (Taylor and Letham), who are great, great people, and if I ask a question they will give me an honest answer. I just don’t feel qualified at the moment. As I said, we will see how it goes in the next few years. HOW MUCH COMFORT DO YOU HAVE PUTTING YOUR MONEY INTO RANGERS TODAY GIVEN THE BOARD AND FINANCIAL STABILITY THEY NOW HAVE COMPARED TO A FEW YEARS AGO? SG: For me personally, I just don’t see a scenario where I would ever sell the shares. If anything, I would increase my shareholding. To step back a bit, coming from Paisley with a grandmother that grew up in the shadow of Ibrox, my own parents have passed away and as time goes on your family gets pared back and pared back. I remember my dad used to take me to the Rangers games and when I was a bit older I would go with my pals. For me, I have got two six-year-old boys and they are starting to get the passion for Rangers. When I am gone, if they have still got a reason to go to Glasgow, I would have fulfilled my position as a father at least and kept that connection to Scotland. I don’t see why else they would go to Scotland if they are going to be living in Japan or wherever they are going to be living. So, for me, it was important to ensure that continuity and that link to Glasgow and Rangers was there. With the regards to how the board is, in the current situation, I am not close to the numbers but it is public information that they lost a wee bit of money last season, but they never sold anyone. The Scottish model is that you have to sell a couple of players to the Premier League to make some money, and hopefully you win domestic trophies along the road and get a run in Europe. I am not close to the numbers, but Rangers should be having a good year financially for the 19/20 and 20/21 season. They haven’t sold anyone yet but they had a decent run in Europe and the season tickets were sold out in days, the full allocation of season tickets are gone. Rangers are in that position where they can weather the storm because they have got that loyal fan base that will support their club and they bought season tickets when they knew they probably wouldn’t get to see the games. I think Rangers will be in pretty good stead in 2020 and 2021. DO YOU SEE THE RANGERS MODEL AS MAKING MONEY FROM SUCCESS ON THE FIELD BUT WITH THERE ALWAYS BEING THE REQUIREMENT FOR EXTERNAL FINANCE? SG: With Rangers and Celtic, it is always going to be an arms race and our wage bill is half of theirs. We have had a good run so far but I don’t want to get carried away. I would rather be pessimistic and be hugely surprised than be overly optimistic. We have had a good run in Europe and domestically. They are not mugs in the East End of the city. They are in bad form right now, but they are not mugs. There is always going to be an arms race between Rangers and Celtic and you are always going to need more money. The money from Scottish broadcasting hardly keeps the lights on and pays the salaries to be quite honest. If you want to get games in Europe, you are always going to have to take in money. https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/18815531.rangers-q-stuart-gibson-5million-share-purchase-future-ibrox-investment-becoming-director-gers-finances/

No need to act the bawbag, I just think that the protocols clearly aren't good enough if a team that has had positives in the previous days then fields a positive player. This could well have a negative outcome for us.

Football should definitely be cancelled now. I mean, how many innocent footballers have died as a result of this madness!? Scandalous!

Another that springs to mind is Kent goal away to Willem after following up on a rebound from Morelos shot.

Hagi was very close with that effort, Arfield also had an attempt from outside the box that went wide, maybe they are being told what we have all been saying, try and shoot more from outside the box! mind you I'm certain the coaches didn't mean shoot from 50+ yards from goal ?

Even in Tier 4 there would be no need to stop football, any more than there was when the EPL resumed in June with no adverse consequences. If football is shut down again it will be due to either incompetence or megalomania ... or since it's Nikla, very likely both.

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Before the campaign started the so called experts on the wireless were telling us Leeds need a striker as Bamford wouldn't score in the premiership, ?

For what it is worth we should all have switched off the English Premier and Champions League a long time ago. Rangers matches only for me.

Love Away days/inside Ibrox. One of the best things about RTV.

Conscious of keeping of keeping feet firmly on the ground here, however we really do have a top quality squad now, the best for years, we are covered in every position and that is having a positive effect on all the players, they know they have a fight to keep their jersey, the way it should be. I'm serious when I say I would not swap any of our players for any Separate Entity FC players. We are on track to win title 55, unless they decide to call the league null & void using COVID-19 as the reason/excuse, which wouldn't surprise me at all if they Separate Entity FC continue to fall. They will try everything to halt the Rangers juggernaut.

The central issue is money - where it comes from, how much there is, who shares it. If a European Superleague ever came to pass then the Champions league would very quickly become a second tier affair with greatly reduced funding. Major sponsors and TV companies would fall over themselves to engage with the new body and the lion's share of football money would be beyond reach.

Going by the following article, the proposal doesn't involve clubs leaving their domestic leagues. The plan is to ditch the Champions League for a stitched-up, invitation only, big money, midweek league: https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12109353/european-premier-league-what-we-know-about-fifa-backed-plans-for-cross-continental-super-tournament The so-called "Champions" League is already a joke. (4th place teams getting an automatic place?). UEFA thought they'd appeased the greedy bastards who own the "elite clubs" by practically guaranteeing group stage participation, but no. Rather than the European Premier League, they should just have done with and brand it the Rich C*nts Who Don't Really Get What Football Is About League. I expect even the "European" aspect of it would be negotiable if it became lucrative to have a team from say, New York or Dubai, take part.

I'm not against change. In fact some changes are badly overdue but not changes that are so obviously intended only to increase and concentrate wealth within a small number of elite clubs, especially when the decisions to change are taken exclusively by those recipient clubs themselves. The structure of football in my lifetime has been dictated by a wish to accrue wealth and power and deny the same to the vast majority of clubs in all countries. The upshot is an almost total lack of competition and a ridiculously uneven distribution of wealth. Before I start to sound like a convert to socialism, I should make it clear that competition should reward winners more than losers and equality of outcomes would kill the game stone dead. What's wrong isn't about the game on the park, it's about TV rights and global marketing. It's about farces like the "Champions" League allowing more clubs from some countries to snout in the trough while actual champions from other countries have to squabble among themselves for a couple of months for the right to be cannon fodder. So much of football isn't about football at all, with most clubs being assigned second or third class status before they even kick a ball. Decisions are being taken solely for the purposes of excluding most clubs from any chance of competing, any chance of putting the already-rich at risk of losing their money-status in the even they can't win on the park. It's so corrupt, so far removed from any sense of sport or fair play that if this is what you think football is about then you should seriously consider your priorities. Unless Rangers are involved, I wouldn't even consider turning the TV on to watch European football.

Greedy bastads soon to become an elitist supported sport outwith the finances of ordinary fans.☠️?