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Scottish Premiership giants Rangers are reportedly set to sign Oldham defender George Edmundson and Charlton Athletic ace Joe Aribo. It is never a quiet summer at Ibrox and 2019 is shaping up to be no different. Rangers have already completed five new signings with Jordan Jones, Jake Hastie, Sheyi Ojo and Greg Stewart heading to Glasgow. Steven Davis, meanwhile, has joined on a permanent basis after a loan spell from Southampton. And it seems that signings num According to The Mail, Rangers are on the verge of signing coveted Oldham Athletic defender George Edmundson for £650,000. Steven Gerrard’s side have fought off competition from Peterborough and Portsmouth for the 21-year-old, who will have a medical this week. Edmundson will be joined north of the border by Joe Aribo, the talented Charlton Athletic midfielder. The Standard claims that he will tell manager Lee Bowyer of his intention to leave during a meeting on Friday with Rangers expected to pay just £250,000 in compensation for a player whose contract expires at the end of the month. That means Rangers are set to sign two of the most promising and in-demand young players in England for less than £1 million. And director of football Mark Allen would deserve huge credit for his role in landing two hugely exciting prospects who should get better and better under Gerrard at Ibrox. Rangers fans wanted their side to spend big in the transfer market in order to announce their intention to fight for the title. But Allen is showing again and again that there is value out there if you look hard enough. https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2019/06/20/allen-would-deserve-huge-credit-if-rangers-land-edmundson-and-ar/

https://rangers.co.uk/news/galleries/gallery-running-drills/

...future funding plans, raising their stakes and a seat on the board WHEN Rangers shareholders have gathered in recent years, headlines and history have often been made. The latest General Meeting on Wednesday morning was a far more straightforward affair, however, as investors approved a resolution that allows soft loans from Dave King and the Three Bears – George Letham, George Taylor and Douglas Park – to be converted into shares. Here, we speak to Club 1872 director Laura Fawkes about what the move means for Rangers and the fan organisation as King and his fellow financial backers get set to continue funding the next stage of the rebuilding job. WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE GENERAL MEETING? LF: From a Club 1872 point of view, it is like a resetting of the shareholding to some degree. The soft loans have been in for a long period of time and Dave, Douglas Park, George Taylor, George Letham, have put a lot of money in via soft loans. It was always the idea that they would be converted to shares and there were the issues with the Takeover Panel so it was put on the backburner and the soft loans have sat there probably for longer than they would have expected. It is a difficult one, because although Club 1872 will be diluted, it is almost bringing the whole thing back to where it always really has been. We have had it in the back of our minds that those soft loans were there and would be converted to shares. We knew those shares would be allocated to those guys and the amount of money they have put in is so large that there was bound to be a level of evening out of the shareholding. It is that finally happening. The crucial point is that Club 1872 members had the opportunity to decide whether or not they supported that happening. Like every issue, we put it out to the members and how they vote is what we action. It was voted through overwhelmingly by the members. HOW DO YOU JUSTIFY TO MEMBERS THE FACT THAT YOUR SHAREHOLDING HAS BEEN DILUTED? LF: I think it is an unavoidable consequence of it and, at the end of the day, the shareholding is reflective of the amount of money that individuals or groups have put into Rangers, it is as simple as that. Dave and the Three Bears have put a massive amount of money in. Club 1872 put £1million in last year and there are two ways of looking at it. We have had that period where we have been the second largest shareholders and been up around the 10 per cent mark, and that has been great. But to have now completed that process, where they have put all the loans in, to still be the fourth largest shareholder is actually really good because it shows how much of a contribution there has been from the fans. It is a bit of a double-edged sword. If you had said there was going to be £20million invested in Rangers over a couple of years and, at the end of that process, Club 1872 would be the fourth largest shareholder, then actually that is really good. We are still above guys like George Letham and Barry Scott, who have contributed a lot. We are still ahead of them in terms of shareholding. That position, while it has changed, is still reflective of the contributions of the membership. We bought a significant amount of shares last year and put £1million into Rangers and there will be opportunities going forward for us to invest more and to change our position. It is a one member one vote system so each member decides for themselves what their motivation is. The members that we have spoken to have said that they see this is in the interests of the club, that this will make the club largely debt free and that is a position they want to be in. I think that was a motivator for individual members to vote the way they did. IS THE TARGET TO RAISE THE SHAREHOLDING BACK TO THE 10 PER CENT LEVEL AND GO FURTHER? LF: We believe we will get a chance to do that in the future and our participation at that point will only be limited by the extent to which supporters get behind the next campaign to raise money. We are sitting at around £400,000 in the bank at the moment and that is for shares and/or projects. We think we will need significantly more than that to participate in the next share issue. We will have the opportunity and that is something the members are aware of. IS THERE A TIMEFRAME FOR THE NEXT SHARE ISSUE AND HOW BIG A ROLE CAN YOU PLAY? LF: I think we would expect it to come fairly soon and it is not a secret that the club are looking to raise more money. I think it is about trying to make people understand that there is no barrier to Club 1872 having the shareholding that the fans want it to have and there is open participation from Club 1872 in any share issue that comes up. This is a different situation because this is just about the conversion of loans that have already been put in. In terms of going back out to shareholders and asking for fundraising, it is very likely that any future share issue would be limited again to a certain number of shareholders, it is unlikely that they will go out to all the small shareholders again because of the admin and cost of doing that. If they can raise funds again from the same people that have been putting money in previously, like Club 1872, then there will be opportunity to do that. The participation at that point is purely based on how much money we have in the bank. If it is £10million, then to stay where we are we would need around £700,000. If it is £20million, to stay where we are we would need £1.4million and it ramps up very quickly. If Dave King, George Letham, George Taylor, Douglas Park, if these guys are willing to keep putting in the amount of money that they are putting in and we can’t match that or put more in comparatively to our shareholding, then we are going to get diluted again. It is really about how much the fans want to have that voice, that shareholding, and if they do they need to join the organisation and put the money in. If we want to be an investor like Dave King, then we have to invest. You might not have £1million in your own bank account, but you might have £5 per month that you can give to Club 1872 and, collectively, we can invest huge sums into Rangers. THERE WILL COME A POINT WHERE THE CURRENT INVESTORS WON’T PUT MONEY IN ANYMORE, SO IT COULD THEN BE UP TO THE FANS. LF: I don’t think there would be any impediment to Club 1872 being able to take part in share issues, possibly smaller ones, for ongoing investment. There has obviously been this period since the current board where they had to invest very heavily in a period of time to get the club back to where it should be. Once it is there, once you have European income and commercial income improving, the club should be largely self-sustainable at some point in the next couple of years. At that point, Club 1872 will still be there with money and will be able to edge the shareholding back up, whether that is through share issues or buying shares from other people. It is actually one of the most efficient ways of getting money into the club. Obviously people want to buy season tickets, they want to buy strips and go for a pint before the game and that is the money they spend around football. In terms of just putting money into Rangers, this is the most efficient way to just help with the rebuilding process. We need to get that message through to people. COULD CLUB 1872 INVEST ON THE SAME TERMS AS OTHER SHAREHOLDERS OR DOES YOUR INVESTMENT COME THROUGH SHARE ISSUES RATHER THAN SOFT LOANS? LF: In a loan scenario, it would be up to members to decide whether they wanted to provide a loan with the possibility of that being converted to shares. It may well be that future investment from everybody can be done via share issues rather than the drip-feeding of loans over a period of time. It may well be that they can say ‘we want to raise £20million in two years’ so they have a share issue and raise £20million and the shares are just allocated out. So the need for the soft loans is mitigated to some degree. At each AGM, they have to go to shareholders for permission to allocate more shares and the way the shareholding make-up is at the moment and the way Club 1872 members have voted, it would see likely that they would be given that permission on an annual basis. Really, then, it is up to them how much money they want to raise. WHEN FANS SEE IMPROVEMENT ON THE PARK AND THINGS ARE MORE SETTLED AT BOARDROOM LEVEL, THERE IS NOT A FIGHT TO BE FOUGHT OR CAUSE FOR THEM TO RALLY BEHIND. IS THAT AN ISSUE FOR CLUB 1872? LF: We are in a position where we can’t let people forget where the club has been. It is an emotional intelligence, if you are not feeling it at that moment it is not real. It was part of our last campaign to remind people where the club had been and that it is important we have an ongoing revenue stream for the club, which people relate to and it inspires them to join. It is also about protecting the club in the future. We are around the 7,000 members mark and we gain members all the time. But we also lose them. We lose them to credit cards expiring and people not filling in the details again, so it isn’t a conscious decision to stop paying in. There are a multitude of reasons why people will drop off and people are added. We have been in this position where the take up and the drop off, apart from times around share issues and things like that where you get a big intake of members, the levels have stayed steady. In many ways, that is good because people are committed to this over a long period of time, they remain committed to it and see the benefit of doing it. It is that spark to get new members to come in that is the difficult part. In a crisis, people will react and will join and do whatever it takes. You saw the growth in the Supporters Trust and RangersFirst at a time when there was a real crisis. People do feel there is no need to it anymore because Dave King is doing it, Douglas Park is doing it. As things improve, it becomes a more normal situation and people think ‘we don’t have to do this’. I suppose the challenge is to say ‘how much quicker could the club get back to the top?’ and ‘how much better would it be to have the burden spread amongst a variety of investors?’. One of those investors would be Club 1872. We are still going to be the fourth largest shareholder after this significant conversion. So the question is whether you want to kick back to 10 per cent? Do you want to get to 15 or 25 per cent? The only way that is going to happen is if a lot more fans sign up for £5 or £10 per month. If they don’t do that, we might be able to hold at our percentage for a period of time but if the club raises £20million, maybe we will get diluted down again. The organisation is constantly putting the message out, but it is that word of mouth and existing members going to their friends and family and saying this is a good thing to do. It is money into Rangers, it gives the fans a voice and if there is ever a situation again where the club ends up in less secure hands than it is in at the moment, then Club 1872 will be in a position to react to that. That is not the only benefit to it, the other benefit is this level of investment. One of the things we are targeting is the latent supporter, so they don’t necessarily go to all the games or buy a strip, but they are Rangers fans. It is trying to get those people to say ‘if the only contribution I make is a month through Club 1872, I am showing my support for Rangers’. That is probably the audience we would like to tap into. We know people shell out a lot of money following Rangers and not everybody will see the benefit in an extra fiver or tenner a month. The reason supporters do that is because there is a collective mindset. You support the team, you go to the game. The team, the manager or the players will do things that aren’t popular from time to time, but you still support the team. Club 1872 has done things that haven’t been popular within the support, but equally we have done things that have been very popular, particularly around statements and people endorse that online or write to us. But it doesn’t translate into memberships, we don’t see people signing up on that basis. We would like to encourage the mindset within the support that this is something that is worthwhile, that you stick with it whether or not the organisation is doing something at the particular moment that you like. The reality is that we can’t please all of the people all of the time. We would like to, but there are times where the organisation does things policy wise or statement wise that you don’t necessarily agree with. But we want the mindset that this is just something you do. You buy your season ticket, you buy your jersey and you pay your Club 1872 subscription and stick with it. I think we still have some work to do with the support in terms of that collective responsibility mindset. IS A SEAT ON THE BOARD STILL AN AIM? HAS THERE BEEN ANY MOVEMENT ON THAT? LF: The members voted for it and it is a stated aim of the organisation. There is a lot of work, I think, to be done. It is about working out the mechanics of how it could actually work and setting the expectations of the supporters in terms of what that role would actually be. There is still this idea that if you have a fan on the board that they will emerge from every board meeting and announce to people what was discussed and what they argued for. That might work at slightly smaller clubs, but Rangers is a big business and it doesn’t work here. You would have to have an understanding, and a trust actually, that the person is doing the best they can on behalf of the members to feedback to the club. A lot of that stuff is happening already. You would want the seat on the board to formalise that process and give you the voting power and it is something the members have voted for so it is an aim of Club 1872. We haven’t met any resistance from the club and discussions about it are ongoing. https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/sport/17711637.rangers-qa-club-1872-on-ibrox-share-conversion-future-funding-plans-raising-their-stakes-and-a-seat-on-the-board/?ref=twtrec

THE CELTIC F.C. NUMBER 7 According to weekend newspaper reports police are hunting Celtic Football Club Paedophile Ring Bheast Number 7. https://www.vanguardbears.co.uk/article.php?i=272&a=the-celtic-f-c--number-7

Call for government to 'rip up' sectarianism secrecy deal with SPFL The Scottish government has been urged to "rip up" a secrecy agreement it reached with the SPFL over data on sectarianism in Scottish football. It emerged on Sunday that almost two years' data had been collated regarding unacceptable behaviour at grounds. The Scottish government was told it would only be able to view the data if it signed a contract that prohibited it from publishing the information. Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has been urged to make the data public. Nail Doncaster, chief executive of the SPL said the matter would be discussed at the next board meeting. At Holyrood, Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur said Mr Yousaf should tear up the contract. He said: "The football authorities have been collating data for the past two seasons in secret. "Nobody but ministers and the police has ever seen it, they never will unless something changes. "Will the cabinet secretary rip up the secrecy agreement and publish today, in full, the contents of the sectarianism database?" Robust data required Mr Yousaf explained that the agreement had been signed by his predecessor, Michael Matheson. He said Mr Matheson had written to the SPFL in 2017 expressing his disappointment over the decision to keep the data from the public. The letter by Mr Matheson to SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster at the time read: "It's difficult to see how the building of public confidence can be achieved without being open and transparent. "I'm therefore disappointed that the data will not be publicly available and I hope that you will reconsider this decision." Mr Yousaf said he spoke to Mr Doncaster on Tuesday morning to outline the government's preference for the data to be made available. "I strongly agree that we need robust data to understand unacceptable conduct at football and take actions necessary to address it," Mr Yousaf said. "The data is collated by the football authorities, not the Scottish government. "It was only provided on the basis that it was, and I quote, 'confidential and is not published'." He added: "However, our clear and consistent preference has been for this data to be published, therefore I've spoken to SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster today to reiterate this once again and we'll follow up in writing. "He and the SPFL have confirmed that they are committed to discuss this positively at their next board meeting. "It's only through open and honest discussion, based on robust evidence, that we can work with all of our partners to tackle the unacceptable conduct by a minority of supporters which unfortunately continues to shame our national game." Potentially actionable Responding to Mr McArthur's call for the agreement to be ripped up, Mr Yousaf said it would not be possible. "It's not in my gift to just rip up an agreement with a stakeholder that could be potentially actionable if I do that," Mr Yousaf said. "Rather, what I've done this morning is spoken to Neil Doncaster through dialogue and conversation, asked him once again to reconsider the SPFL's objection to that. "In fairness to Neil Doncaster, he took a very constructive approach to that telephone conversation, has agreed that he'll put that forward to the board at the next board meeting and I hope through that dialogue we get to a place where that data can be very readily published." Police warn of rise in sectarianism Football 'must root out cancer of bigotry' Mr McArthur added: "It seems inconceivable that the government would sign up to an arrangement that's effectively gagged it by the SPFL. "The Scottish government's own independent commission asked for this data to be recorded and published annually to inform a proper public debate. "Serious conversations about options like strict liability are impossible if the figures are kept secret. "And that calls into question just how seriously those who have the data are working to lift the curse affecting Scottish football." He added: "I too would like to hear from Neil Doncaster because the SPFL's response has been to date, quite frankly, pathetic. "If their response to sectarianism is dependent on secrecy and gagging orders, they don't deserve to be running the game." Mr Doncaster said: "I had a very positive meeting with Humza Yousaf where he formerly requested that a variety of information be made public. "We will now discuss this as a board before deciding the best way forward. "During the conversation, we wholeheartedly agreed on the imperative to do all we can to tackle unacceptable conduct and underlined our keenness to play an active role in the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on combating sectarianism in Scottish society when it convenes, we believe, in the summer." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-48683584

On loan Liverpool attacker speaks to RangersTV for the first time. https://rangers.co.uk/tv/view?it=17386&act=view&c=News

Ojo has signed, official