ByGary Ralston
So, that will be Rangers heading into administration then.
What do you mean they’ll make the announcement on Monday?
My sources (a friend of a friend of a friend) was packing the bags of Dave King’s mum in Tesco and heard her on the phone to her boy in Johannesburg.
It’ll be announced on Wednesday morning at 10.37am on the button.
Apparently, it’s a pre-pack deal (the administration, not her shopping) and the Ibrox chairman will receive £10million, walking away to be replaced by a consortium fronted by Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.
Further investors will include Bradley Walsh, Paul Sinha, Anne Hegerty and Mark Labbett, offering conclusive proof Rangers do, indeed, welcome The Chase.
As Rumours go, this latest one has been hanging around longer than anything recorded by Fleetwood Mac - and has enjoyed just as many re-releases.
Like the first cuckoo in spring, swallow in summer and robin in winter, the sightings of ‘Rangers in administration’ are certainly consistent and, time and again, have proved to be nothing other than pie in the sky.
King and the Three Bears - Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor - have invested heavily to wrestle control from the discredited former board and put their club on a firmer financial footing in the past three years.
Conservative estimates put the total at around £20million, much of it from King himself, who has given a further undertaking to auditors Campbell Dallas that he’s good for another £7m to underpin business losses over the next 12 months.
Campbell Dallas are hardly a firm of back street bookies. If they felt there was any likelihood of those sums being unavailable, they would not have signed off in the annual accounts on Rangers continuing as a going concern.
Speaking of the bookies, they apparently closed their satchels on the prospect of Rangers being relegated this season, foreseeing a hefty points deduction and player fire sale if they fall into the abyss.
These, of course, are the same bookies who closed the book on Alex McLeish being named new Rangers boss last month when he had never received so much as a phone call about the position.
Rangers are in debt to no one but their investors, all of them wealthy fans who have pledged to convert much of their loans to equity when a new share issue is launched, most likely later in the year.
Forget the fact they’re supporters, why the hell would they pull the plug and plunge the club into further financial chaos, knowing they would lose almost everything they have put in?
By the end of this year, King will have committed around £40m of his business fortunes to Rangers - half of which was frittered away, much to his disgust, by former chairman David Murray.
In the past 12 months alone he has written a £3m cheque to rid the club of the odious influence on Mike Ashley and £1.5m to UEFA to ensure his team’s UEFA licence.
He has bankrolled Pedro Caixinha, however botched the project, and only this week signed off on a package for Jamie Murphy that will ultimately cost his club the guts of £2m.
There was £1m set aside in an escrow account to pay Aberdeen compensation for Derek McInnes and almost the same again on the table for a salary had the club’s former midfielder decided to leave Pittodrie for Edmiston Drive.
Undoubtedly, King must be held to account. He rode roughshod over the Takeover Panel, for example, who recently concluded he acted in concert with the Three Bears and have demanded he offer 20 pence to all shareholders for their stock, only around two-thirds of their current value.
King has launched an appeal, which will keep it kicking around the legal long grass for a few months to come.
He’s confident of his position. If he loses? He’ll have to fork out around £300,000 for a prospectus knowing no-one will sell for the price he is legally bound to offer while his family trust fund, New Oasis Limited, ring fences £10m just in case.
The geography of the Rangers board is far from ideal with King in South Africa and Alistair Johnston in the States, while Park spends much quality time in Spain.
Other directors have bases in London and Hong Kong and if sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum, mischief can certain be made when strong boardroom leadership is lacking on a daily basis from G51.
That’s something King may do well to consider and address in the coming months but hold on, a call’s just coming in - he’s just been spotted at the Ladbrokes on Copland Road.
He’s slapped £100 on Pep Guardiola at 500,000-1 to become his first-team manager next season. Administration? Aye, right.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-heading-administration-thats-more-11834964