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buster.

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Everything posted by buster.

  1. buster.
    Thus far we have found that Graham Wallace can appear to talk a good corporate game. Indeed put that beside his legendery CV and we should be glad to have him on board, no matter what the price and foggy criteria to pocket it. Or should we ? Wallace is cutting his teeth in his first CEO role and it shows. When he is forced into details, instead of general and broad corporate nothingness he invaribly falls flat on his face with blatant contradictions, economies of truth and misleading lines. Sandy Easdale said in December that GW would be the public voice of the board. What has actually happened is either though design or a change in plan, Wallace has been reluctant to face an inquiring independent media. His press conference when presenting the business review was the first time in ages that he had braved the spotlight. He prefers a friendly RTV or more controlled interventions with the media (with expensive spin-doctor sitting beside him). The latest "engagement" being his twitter Q&A which ended up being more a O&G. Previously he had been a Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Manchester City and in the week the club is advertising that position I'd venture that this is a job that would better suit Wallace. I'll touch on one specific issue, scouting. Wallace has talked about the importance of this since December. When outlining what the 'extra long business review' (xLBR) would cover it included..... - "Develop and implement a Football Player Asset Strategy to take in First team squad, Youth Development and Succession Planning." http://rangers.g3dhosting.com/regulatory_news_article/363 It was also said that where possible/necessary, ongoing decisions and action would be taken before the xLBR was published. In January this year GW said the following in an newspaper article............. "At a time when this club needs to be identifying and scouting talent and acquiring talent at attractive levels our scouting and recruitment was largely dismantled. A small example of short-termism." http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/tom-english-interviews-rangers-ceo-graham-wallace-1-3275716 This type of infrastructure usually takes time to bear fruit so is it unreasonable to expect some of the building blocks to be put in place as quickly as possible ? The months passed by and nothing was or has been done. Then came the xLBR and this is what it contained regards scouting or similar. Business Review – Assessment of Current Operations There is no proper talent identification and scouting operation in place for professional players and at the time when investment in playing talent needed to focus on identifying value acquisitions, the Club dismantled its scouting and recruitment network. Future Strategy Invest in Academy Players – An Academy Development Fund will be created with dedicated annual investment, increasing over time, committed to the acquisition and development of high calibre young players at different stages of their careers with the target to increase the number of Club trained talent coming through to play in the first team at an early stage. Develop Player Asset Management – Developing playing talent is one of the major challenges at any football club. The Chief Football Operations Officer will also have the remit to develop the Club’s player asset strategy which will build a long term structure and plan to deliver playing talent for the Club and maximize value from player trading. http://www.rangers.co.uk/images/staticcontent/documents/RangersBusinessReview.pdf To wait 4 months for that level of detail with vague pointers to how it will be funded is extracting the Michael. They seem to be in no hurry despite targetting the Scottish League title within 3 years. Wallace talks the corporate talk but doesn't or isn't allowed to start walking. Mind you he needed to bring in a spin-doctor to help him with the talking. Importance to the Board: Spin > Scouting Anyone thinking 'benefit of the doubt', 'let's see what happens' may want to look at how this board have gone about business and tell me why they should be trusted. What strikes me is that the consistent MO of the various incarnations of the boardroom in recent years is to mislead,.... lie,.... play for time,.... talk of 'X' ambition,... vanish with a sackful of our money before accountability can kick-in and a new lot come in......... and start a variation of the process again. Wallace is an empty vessel but it's those in and around the boardroom who have him as their 'Pied Piper' leading us down the road towards footballing obscurity.
  2. buster.
    Is that sarcasm ? The reason why such players have come to Ibrox in the past has been 'loads of money', those days are gone. The scouting has to be done at other levels.
  3. buster.
    Those were nearly the days ! What strikes me now is that we can no longer seriously have aspirations to go that far. The dice are financially loaded and that's not even taking into consideration our 'situation'.
  4. buster.
    Perhaps instead of making sly digs, we as a support might want to ask ourselves about our role during the last few years. Speaking generally and critically we have been found wanting. We hold ourselves up as being as loyal as they come and we probably are but if harsh truths are faced up to, then it's also as gulible as they come. Up until this point, the phrase 'blind loyalty' has fitted like a glove. I think that this factor was taken into account by sp.ivs before they decided to play their 'joker' on Rangers. With that in mind and appreciating that every individual makes his own decisions, perhaps it's a time to mix loyalty with some critical longterm thought. TBF I think many have and are reaching this stage now.
  5. buster.
    Aye, the only language sp.ivs understand is money. They will be wanting a prohibitive price for their controlling interests (way, way above market price). So the support can fund this executive board's continued presence and look forward to a future in the Coventry City, Leeds Utd mould............ (anyone name a club that a hedge fund got involved with that ended in a happy story ?) .................Or they can say enough is enough, that we'll accept another difficult year but at least be free of the lead weights in an around the current board and start to build with one aim in mind, the longterm future of the club.
  6. buster.
    Someone asked me if a hedge fund had ever had a positve effect on a football club when acting as a 'major player' in events. Anyone ?
  7. buster.
    Listening to KB on the radio over the last few weeks I think he's made his mind up that he's going elsewhere. He seems to view the season at Kilmarnock as a stage to get get gametime, score goals and prove that he has it in him to move up a level. Good business for all,.....I think KB is happy with what he has done and that Kilmarnock have been delighted but will accept that Boyd has other plans. So what will his plans be ? Rangers are the obvious candidate or will he listen to other offers ? Would the signing of Boyd excite the support because I think you'll find a player or two being signed up soon in a bid to push ST sales.
  8. buster.
    Football clubs and those given relevant contracts generally take advantage of the emotional attachment of 'customers' and the quality / pricing / margin tends to illustrate this. The only way to change this dynamic is for supporters in good number to voice their complaints and remove their custom (eg. football strips) until matters are addressed.
  9. buster.
    Various accountants are needed because of the monotony of the job. When money comes into the club there is a box, where they keep the football club's money and a wheelbarrow where they put the money for the board, their friends etc. So it's a matter of a pile of legal tender in front of the accountant and they have to divvy it up and place the money into the box and wheelbarrow. One for you, Two for us, One for you, Two for us, One for you, Two for us,.......................
  10. buster.
    I think that COO was the role that Wallace had at Man City. If GW wants to take up this role which I think his experince and performance as CEO to date points him towards, I'd happily step-up for the CEO role. The first thing would be to put together a contract that was very clear on the renumeration package as I think Wallace made his first 'mistake' before he even signed the contract and has been struggling ever since.
  11. buster.
    The bookies have a get out clause within T&C for this type of thing although I'd say this is difficult to defend from their POV in the glare of a now very public case. What they will say is that it has been a 'mistake' but to me given the market and time they've taken to notice the 'mistake', it looks very much like a 'misjudgement' when pricing the particular market. Billy may yet get the full whack and what I believe he is due.
  12. buster.
    Yesterday's Q&A was an OG. A half hearted effort at doing something that they could label "engagement". You can tell this is GW's first gig as a CEO, he isn't comfortable or very good when 'in front of the lights', even when it's behind a twitter account selecting the questions to answer. He trips himself up and makes it easy to pick him up when he goes outwith the general corporatespeak that tells us, not a lot. This only reflects what he is trying to shield or front.
  13. buster.
    Good post Hildy (no.51) I'll try to come at it from another angle. There are two main layers of power at Ibrox. At the top you have the executive board and underneath them is the football operation. What we've had in recent years is what you might describe as a 'mutual survival pact' between two seperate gravytrains. Neither have been or are good for the club. Although the important difference between them is that the board have an agenda that gives priority to themselves and their backers whereby the football dept. is simply not very good at what they do. When I say "mutual", that hasn't always been accurate because there have been public spats, negative subliminal messages etc.....However at important junctures there has been 'back scratching'. Ally McCoist isn't a good football manager and in a normal enviroment he would have been sacked by now but 'club politics' have made it difficult for the board to do this and Ally has helped the board sell ST's and backed every chancer to walk through the doors. At the moment AMcC seems more reluctant to contribute in this way and we'll have to see how it develops. So we have had and have various incarnations of executive control (board), none of whom we can trust giving priority to the political rather than the football. Aslong as the money keeps rolling in they won't rock the boat. Recently we had a business review that pointed to scouting as being important (120 days to realise that/ act on it) but went out and signed a spin-doctor. Talk about the football, Act on the political................ It's their MO. We had Green talk about CL music, no (external) debt etc. but he was long gone with pockets full as the truth became clear. The tell-tale sign was that in the IPO prospectus there was no provisional spend allocated towards scouting, youth & development. We have Wallace talking about SPFL1 Championships in 3 years (without real credible detail on how that is to be achieved), he'll be long gone before we can hold him to account. It's a multi-layered gravytrain (board&Co and football) where many benefit disproportionally as they contribute to an 'Omnishambles'. The real losers are the football club and the supporters. We have a football club that isn't Fit for Purpose at any level
  14. buster.
    Fair enough ! But it comes back to being a league that doesn't tell the full story. It's about managing and developing your young players, not winning titles.
  15. buster.
    Unfortunatly I think you are right but winning an u20 league doesn't necessarily mean your youth system is the best. Surely teams that have a fair number of u20 players playing in the first team are ahead in that particular department. eg. If Dundee Utd had been able to play their best XI with u20's you'd have had the likes of Soutar, Gauld and Robertson playing.
  16. buster.
    What ? The figure that 4 independent experts came up with for what GW merits for his bonus. This was done after spending 120 days painstaking days trying to interpretate his contract then numbercrunching. ps, joke
  17. buster.
    There will be an attempt to use any new membership scheme to try and marginalise those other groups who don't tow the partyline and have become 'awkward'....(It will also look to control and manage communication with the fans). I don't know about headcount and numbers involved but if not too high, they may have considered writing them off, so to speak. Thinking a fair percentage would drift back but as individuals.
  18. buster.
    It's ironic that Mr.Hunt is talking about spin when we are simply reading what was said in the business review and comparing it to what was said today. If Mr.Wallace hadn't made the revisionist change in such an important part of the answer to one of the few probing questions then you wouldn't have needed to come on and tell us to stop nit-picking.
  19. buster.
    Why not just say what you alude to ? The business review refers to fans, unless they are now regarded by the club as 'non-fans'. In court on Tuesday, the QC who took instruction from Rangers said something that was perhaps revealing or perhaps not. Alasdair Lamont ‏@BBCAlLamont 6 de may. Mr Summers QC says Rangers wish Union of Fans would "go away to allow the club to move on". Today GW today said that fans were not blamed in the business review and revised the text to suit this line.
  20. buster.
    If you were working in some kind of advisory capacity in the material you'd have been given your P45 and not asked back for a similar gig. As it is, we are only messageboard posters but when one shouts so loud and often it is better to do so with a decent track record.
  21. buster.
    Aye right, forget the words............next it'll be the pounds
  22. buster.
    Well documented on FF. This is why I mentioned it in the first place. Nearly all those standing 'unconditionally' with the current board are the same who were shouting beside the likes of Green. Their credibility on such judgement calls is effected. Many did make the mistake and got carried along with the wave but you are someone who I would have thought savvy enough to see through the bluster, apparently not. It is relevant in that you might want to err on the side of caution or not be so generous with the benefit of the doubt.
  23. buster.
    No, he deliberately tried to mislead/revise. If that isn't the case, we have an idiot on 315K plus 100% bonus.
  24. buster.
    "in some quarters".............. is the phrase you want to examine. Put the shovel away BH
  25. buster.
    You didn't with Mr.Green either.
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