amms

I hope you are right. I'm not sure even a club as large as ours could withstand a second financial collapse. I've huge concerns about the motives of a number of the people around our club just now, they have a stated aim of wanting to make money, I don't see how it is possible to make the kind of money they expect in Scotland, I worry they have a plan b, and what that might involve selling concerns me greatly.

The vast majority in this country. Football has been a business in this country for well over a century, what businessmen get out of it is usually an ego trip, perhaps a higher profile and the opportunity to impress a few of their peer group. But the vast majority of them get no tangible return, the vast majority have an attachment to the club usually through having been a supporter at some level. Almost all will lose considerable amounts of money, there are exceptions but not many. I've witnessed at first hand three separate businessmen lose fortunes funding Scottish football clubs, all three of them were smart, successful and fairly wealthy before football robbed them of their commonsense. They got very little success on the field and absolutely no gratitude from their support. But with respect STB this isn't what you meant. You seem to be under the illusion that football clubs can be run like other 'normal' businesses, they can't, they aren't normal businesses.

You don't need to be in administration to worry about the future, we should all have learned that by now.

I don't doubt your sincerity but I really feel you're misguided on this subject. I can't think of a single club who are successful by any stretch of that word and are run to produce a profit for the people who own them. Man Utd are probably the closest but they have such enormous debt that they are hardly the model to follow. The previous owners of Liverpool came close to putting them out of business, the current owner has been far more prudent but you couldn't describe them as successful currently. As for your list Southampton were in administration less than three years ago, they were bought by an eccentric millionaire who bankrolled them out of League 1 and then died leaving them a legacy which they invested wisely. There current ownership structure is less than opaque, belonging to his family estate, they however have taken nothing out of the club so far as anyone can tell. Bolton and Newcastle only make agents money, their owners are owed millions of pounds, money they are very unlikely to see again. Newcastle are hovering precariously over the relegation zone too. Cardiff are interesting. You at least acknowledge they 'might have gone too far' which is the understatement of the year. They have sold their soul, they are the epitome of all that is wrong with football just now. They are the plaything of a far eastern 'businessman' with a fairly shady background and who is intent of using Cardiff to further his political ambitions in Malaysia. If Rangers ever did what Cardiff have done I'd give up on football. Rangers men want to put us in debt? Is this is a stated aim they have, where are you getting that from and who are these Rangers men?

I see his lies as black and white, I'm not sure how else to view that, I'm not sure how you can see shades of grey frankly. It's not a matter of finding a smoking gun, by the time you find that the murder has been committed. What I do is look at the behaviour, the public utterances and the company he keeps and make a judgement on that. We all feared we wouldn't have a club last year, why this is making me angry is because I find myself feeling the same way again now.

Stop prevaricating. Name these successful clubs where their owners are in it to make money? I'll let you define 'success'.

Okay, name them then. Do you really need me to define what success is for Rangers supporters?

What viewpoints? From my reading you see Green as the club's saviour and think he's been overthrown by a shady cabal of 'Rangers men' intent on installing Ally McCoist to the role of manager for life. Green managed to lose the faith of a six man board in less than 8 months, that's some going, he's clearly a regular business genius. He's lied to the support. He's embarrassed the club. This whole Green farrago stinks, why you can't see that I don't know. I reminded of some of our support who continued to back Craig Whyte even after administration because they couldn't bring themselves to admit he'd lied and conned them.

It's unique in the history of our club. What clubs run by businessmen wanting to make money for themselves have been successful then?

Your faith in Green is bewildering. I'm coming to the conclusion that a strand of our support simply require to have unquestioning loyalty to someone, no matter who it is. I actually wonder if somewhere in the subconscious of the Lowland Scot and Northern Irish there is need to be loyal, it's in our DNA now. Green is a liar and a buffoon, he might actually be a lot worse than too, but for now we know for sure he is those two things. That alone should exclude him from holding any position at our club.

Seriously, you'd welcome it? I'm speechless at that.

For some it seems Green deserves beatification, I find that really odd. I doubt Green is the devil, but he's not the messiah either. He's a businessman who saw an opportunity too make money and took it. Fair enough, not my first preference for the CEO of Rangers but we were vulnerable and he's who we got. What seems to be missing from much of the analysis on Green's resignation is an understanding of business. Green had clearly lost the confidence of the board, a cardinal sin for any CEO, so right away his competence needs questioned, after all he really only needed to keep half a dozen men onside and he couldn't do that. The Rangers board is a fair cross-section of people too, it's not like it's an 'old' Rangers clique, it has some serious businessmen on it, people I'd expect to be able to see through bullshit, see through spin and focus on what matters, namely the finances and the direction the 'business' is going in. They clearly were unhappy with something that Green was doing or had done. We might never find out exactly what that is but we should consider that these people have more insight, knowledge and experience than most of us in these matters. Green can be replaced, he can be replaced with someone more able, he's been good copy for the media, they'll miss him, but I'm far from convinced he's some huge missed opportunity.

To be fair the SFA Professional Game board is a broader church than you might expect - Chairman: Rod Petrie (Scottish FA) Members: Jim Ballantyne (SFL), Neil Doncaster (SPL), Peter Lawwell (SPL), David Longmuir (SFL), Alan McRae (Scottish FA), Campbell Ogilvie (Scottish FA), Stewart Regan (Scottish FA), Sandy Stables (SHFL) and Ralph Topping (SPL) There are certainly a few of the usual suspects on that but I'll take a bit of convincing that Jim Ballantyne, David Longmuir, Sandy Stables and Cambell Ogilvie are Lawell's stooges. From an SFA perspective they are very worried that if a deal can't be done Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hearts and Kilmarnock will almost certainly slip into administration, and clubs like Motherwell, ICT, St Johnstone and many Div 1 clubs will need to go part-time. This terrifies them, and I suppose as the governing body it should concern them. That they are culpable for causing or at least allowing this scenario to be created is kind of lost on them. I think I could live with a deal that saw the league bodies uniting into one, a greater 'trickle' down of revenue, a change to the voting structure on all issues and no change to the leagues next season. But at some point the debt being carried by football clubs needs to be cleared, either by someone writing it off or more likely by administration, the sooner this happens the sooner we can all start looking forward.

I've spoken to Tims today who genuinely believe St Mirren are being influenced by Charles Green. When I pointed out that Green can't currently count on his own board far less St Mirren's they stuck pencils up their nostrils and chanted 'wibble' loudly. Here's the thing, the SPL are spinning this tonight that they offered to change voting rights to 9-3. This is disingenuous, they only offered to change voting rights to 9-3 on league reconstruction, not on any of the other topics that fall under the 11-1 voting structure just now. So Celtic and Aberdeen could continue their cabal whilst the rest ran around looking for scraps. A fact I've come to realise in the last 12 months is they're trying to prop something up that is fundamentally broken. It carries too much debt, it provides poor quality and it's badly run. We were guilty of it too but events overtook us and now we've the chance to rebuild. Scottish football needs rebuilt, they'll be casualties in that process and I feel sorry for the supporters of those clubs, I really do, but it is for the best, I'm convinced about that now. It's not a great analogy but when the financial crash happened Ireland and Greece were bailed out, their economies were propped up and protected. Iceland on the other hand, an equally buggered economy was left to fail for a variety of political reasons. They'd real pain for several years but now, some five or so years on who is stronger, who is growing faster and who is going to leave recession first? I really think Scottish football needs to fail, to crash and to rebuild itself before it can prosper again. Today might be the start of that.

It's ironic that anyone is lecturing MacGregor, his business record suggests he's someone worth listening too and I doubt he's easily pressurised. He's put himself into a superb negotiating position though, it wouldn't surprise me if he's engineered it that way. Celtic and their cabal will be offering the smaller clubs all sorts of inducements to push this through, they've shown their hand, he holds all the cards now. I won't be in the slightest bit surprised if the vote goes the SPLs way, but I expect the deal will be a lot less attractive to the 'bigger' clubs.

Now I always understood a Rangers supporters club existed in Hamburg in the 1960s. Lot's of Glasgow guys went to Hamburg because of the shipbuilding and associated work that went on there, most came home, but some didn't, and they invariably chose Hamburg as their 'local' side. The Celtic/St Pauli thing is relatively recent, no matter what they might claim, it might have led to a reawakening in the Hamburg support of the connection with us but the connection has been there for a while. We could do a lot worse than study how Hamburg are run, indeed German football in general is worth understanding.

Roddy Forsyth isn't a Rangers hater and I'm far from convinced the Daily Telegraph is part of a secret Celtic controlled cabal trying to destroy us.

I've not read it yet, I will later though. However you've just been retweeted onto my Twitter timeline, you look like you're about 15! I didn't look 15 even when I was that age, that's an impressive skincare regime you've got. :-)

That's a very hard hitting piece, frankly we ignore it at our peril, I'm no longer in any doubt there are serious issues at the club now. The Record, whatever some think of it, didn't pen that without being sure of its veracity. People we can be sure love the club are unhappy with some of the decisions being made by some of the people running it, that should concern is. The point about Regan and the SFA is alarming, the last thing we need is giving them any cause to come after us again.

Look it's fairly clear neither Man U nor the Dallas Cowboys have entered into any conversations with Green on a formal or indeed informal basis. That being the case he shouldn't pretend they have, indeed don't mention it at all. He's not a braggart down the pub he's the CEO of Rangers.

Yes they are which is why his lying about them is all the more alarming.

Fuck me, so who is twisting now? I asked what discrimination you've received, nothing else, but good attempt at a strawman GA. Green wasn't unfairly highlighted, he deserves all the stick he's getting. If you think the CEO of any other major football club or indeed any prominent organisation in this country could give an interview to the Sun where he admits to calling a British Asian '"my Paki friend" and he wouldn't be criticised for it you're sniffing glue mate.

I'm not twisting anything. If you weren't referring to yourself then who were you referring too?

So in what way are you treated differently from everyone else? As a white, native English speaking male living in the west of Scotland I'm curious about the discrimination you face.

"Mock outrage" is it, really? I think you are really misreading this. The context he used those words was the pages of the best selling tabloid in the country. Green's from Yorkshire, a county with a large Asian population, he must be aware of their meaning, whatever the context. Whatever he chooses to call his 'friends' in private the CEO of Rangers should not be using words like that in public. He's an idiot.