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As regular readers will know, I strongly oppose the “Requisition Party” in their attempts to bring boardroom change at Ibrox. Although I have been critical of Paul Murray and others, I would never knowingly or intentionally say something I knew to be untrue about them in order to make a point or make them look bad. Recently I blogged that Scott Murdoch was being proposed by the Requisitioners to be appointed to the board with the purpose of implementing a sale and lease back of Ibrox Stadium and Auchenhowie. I also stated another proposed new board member – Alex Wilson – was being brought in to effect a staff cull at Ibrox. I have received a legal letter informing me these statements are false. As a result I offered these gentlemen a right to reply on this blog and I am delighted to say this was accepted. This right of reply now follows:- FROM PAUL MURRAY, MALCOLM MURRAY, SCOTT MURDOCH AND ALEX WILSON “The suggestion that Scott Murdoch and Alex Wilson were being proposed to the Rangers Board in order that they would implement a sale and leaseback and a staff cull was entirely false and we welcome the opportunity of setting the record straight. For the avoidance of doubt we have no intentions of selling Ibrox or Auchenhowie. Indeed we would be proposing that Ibrox is “ring-fenced” so that it is legally protected for future generations of fans.” ENDS

From the LSE:

........................unified Ibrox support won't stop protesting until board are overthrown ROBERTON, spokesman for the Rangers Supporters' Association, believes fans are united in their stance for the first time in decades and warns the club's hierarchy their mood is not about to change. RANGERS fans’ chief Drew Roberton insists the Ibrox support is as unified as it’s ever been – and won’t stop protesting until the current board are overthrown. Walter Smith admitted this week he’s never seen protests like the ones he witnessed at Somerset Park on Sunday when Gers fans made their feelings known live on TV about what they think of the hierarchy at their club. In the past, they’ve been guilty of being fractious and split on most issues at Rangers. But now, Roberton is adamant all fans are unanimous in their views that major changes must take place at the agm on October 24. There is a movement – initiated by billionaire Jim McColl and businessman Paul Murray – to oust chief executive Craig Mather, finance director Brian Stockbridge and board member Bryan Smart. Judging by the banners unfurled during the 2-0 victory over Ayr at the weekend, the supporters have made their minds up as well. Roberton, spokesman for the Rangers Supporters’ Association, believes it’s the first time in decades fans have been united in their stance. And he warned the boardroom’s current incumbents their mood isn’t about to change any time soon. He told Record Sport: “The feeling among the fans is very clear. They want change and the protests won’t let up until they get it. The strength of feeling among the support and continued protests have actually surprised me. “Over the years, Rangers fans have generally been angry today and over it tomorrow. But now the fans have the bit between their teeth. These protests will not go away between now and the agm, at the very least. “They want certain people out. And the best way to do that is to make it known to shareholders they are unhappy with the board. “In all my years watching Rangers I’ve never known as many fans to be united on one particular subject. “They made their feelings clear at Ayr. No matter how they try to dress it up, the figures in the annual accounts – considering the money brought in – just don’t look good. I think that will continue until the likes of Mather and Stockbridge are out the door.” With the agm looming, the general perception is Rangers’ future will lie in the hands of the institutional investors and the big “money men” associated with the club. But Roberton says that’s not the case and is certain ordinary fans have a crucial role to play. He said: “It’s vitally important that the support sticks together because, of the total shareholding, ordinary punters have around 12 per cent of it. “Come the agm that 12 per cent could sway the vote. People probably think fans on the street can’t influence it but they can. If certain votes are close, the fans’ 12 per cent could have a huge bearing.” Roberton would welcome further investment – but only if the cash is used to benefit the club and current boss Ally McCoist. So, after Mather and Stockbridge returned from a meeting with Dave King, Roberton urged fans to be careful what they wish for. He said: “A lot of fans are sceptical now about people with that kind of money because they ask, ‘If you were that interested why didn’t you put your hand in your pocket when the club was available?’ “But I don’t think anyone has the right to expect people to spend their money on a club just because you think they should. Especially when you’re unsure where exactly that money will go. “My view is King is thinking along similar lines to McColl, in that he doesn’t want to pay any money to see the likes of Mather and Stockbridge go. “I’m assuming King wants change at boardroom level but, like McColl, he wants money he puts in to go towards the club, not the people running it. Whether it’s King or anyone else, our view is there’s a drastic need for change. “But it’s difficult to nail colours to anyone’s mast because, after what we’ve been through already at Rangers, you could be made to look stupid in six months time.” That’s why Roberton feels Walter Smith refused to condemn the likes of Mather but suggested money raised over the summer has been used to serve individuals, as opposed to the club itself. He added: “Walter was clever with his comments this week. He’s alluding to certain things and allowing fans to make their own mind up. “But he has already backed the requisitioners so, from that point of view, his stance is clear. “When he resigned from the board he seemed to be behind Mather. But I’m not sure if he’s changed his mind on that now.” http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/rangers-fans-chief-drew-roberton-2355770

If you were constructing a gallery of guilty men at Rangers then you’d want to make sure your walls are supported by reinforced steel, such is the weight of numbers you’d be hanging up there. Walter Smith has pretty much stood alone as the good guy in all of this. ‘In Walter We Trust’ as some Rangers supporters might put it. It’s hard not to respect and like the former Ibrox manager given all that he has done in the game, but it’s possible to hold him in high esteem while at the same time pointing out the fallacy that he is blameless in the spectacular mess that his club has become. In the deconstruction of the Rangers story you’d point the finger at plenty of guys *before you’d have Smith in your sights, but the fact is that he has played his own part in the *malaise. He possesses none of the spiv-ish nature of some of the chancers who have come and gone at Ibrox, but he still warrants criticism. It didn’t come across in his interviews on Tuesday, but Smith is no innocent bystander in all of this. We go back to last summer and a tabloid headline that read ‘Walter’s Heartbreak’ above a story that told of Smith’s failed bid to take control of Rangers in June 2012. To talk of his heartbreak was a little kind given that the bid failed partly because, as Malcolm Murray subsequently pointed out, there was actually no formal bid – he called it empty posturing – and partly because even if there was a bid it was too little, too late. By the time Smith, Jim McColl and Douglas Park mounted their white steeds and galloped over the horizon in Govan, calling on Charles Green to “step aside” in the interests of Rangers, Green had already secured the business and assets for a song. What took them so long? Where had they been? They made no secret of their concern about the motivation of Green and his group. They were spot-on there. So why wait until Green had done the deal before appearing on the scene? On these pages in the past I equated their action to somebody busting in on a funeral with a defibrillator. Smith asked Green to step aside in the interests of Rangers. Appealing to his sense of fair play wasn’t going to change the course of events. The one thing that Green would have listened to was an offer. Money doesn’t talk to Green, it hollers like a banshee. Smith’s group had the financial clout to get the Yorkshireman off the scene and they didn’t deliver. They spoke openly of their serious reservations about Green’s mysterious group but didn’t do what needed to be done. We could talk about Smith’s axis of excess with David Murray back in the day when Rangers thought they had money when in actual fact what they had was credit and iffy tax schemes, which eventually came back to trouble them and helped cause the spectacular implosion. More recent events show that the hubris of the 1990s and early 2000s hasn’t been fully purged. Smith was right to be anxious about Green. For months, Green attempted to get him on board and was getting nowhere. Getting Ally McCoist’s imprimatur was incredibly valuable to Green and the chances are that his regime would not have got off the ground had McCoist stayed true to his own initial feelings about the Yorkshireman, but he didn’t. The endorsement of McCoist helped shift season tickets and helped endear Green to the Ibrox faithful after an early and bitter stand-off with the supporters, featuring a death threat. Getting McCoist on side – publicly at any rate – was good, but getting Smith to join him was equally important given the IPO last December. In November, Walter jumped into bed with Green. They shook hands and smiled for the cameras. One big happy *family again. Smith became a non-*executive director. The veneer of calmness was what Green was looking for and thanks to two Rangers icons, he got it. Both men would have been better advised to stick to their original positions on Green and his cohorts. By changing their minds, they played their own part in facilitating the embarrassment that followed. It can’t have been that much of a surprise, given how dubious they were about Green in the first place. Smith became chairman last June, not because he wanted to but because he felt he had to in the wake of the in-fighting at Ibrox, the dysfunctionality of the board as he later described it. It was to his credit that he moved into a position that he had no experience of. He knew he lacked the tools but, equally, he vowed that he would be as hands-on as he could possibly be. “No-one should believe that I see my role as a passive one,” he said. “That hasn’t been my way in the past and it won’t be my way in the future.” Encouraging words for the Rangers fans who craved authority and order at the top of the club, but it’s easy to see how Smith was virtually powerless in that bonkers regime of Green’s. You can’t blame him for walking away from the civil war. But some of the things he said on Tuesday jar a little all the same. His comments on the financial waste at Ibrox, under his watch in part, demanded explanation. “I knew they [Rangers] would make a loss [for the financial year ended 30 June] but I wasn’t sure exactly what it would be. It was quite a surprise when it came out to be such a large figure.” Quite a surprise? Smith was chairman for the end of that period. Did he ask questions about the financial state of the club while he was there? Did he get answers? Were the answers truthful? If yes, why was he then surprised when the accounts revealed such a massive cash-burn? If no, then did he feel people inside the club had lied to him? Smith was chairman. He should have known, shouldn’t he? Having the business savvy to be able to do something about the obscene bonuses being dished out would have been a different matter entirely, but as chairman he should have known. Unless he was a passive chairman, which he said he wouldn’t be. On the football side of it, it’s pretty clear that Smith had no issue with McCoist earning £825,000 a year. Also, he has said that giving a player a wage of £7,500 a week (Ian Black, for one) while in the Third Division was not such a big deal. Presumably he had no truck with other deals, like the one given to Fran Sandaza that would have seen the Spaniard’s salary rise to £10,000 a week in the final year of his contract. The overall wage bill in the Third Division was £7.8 million. Smith said: “People come out and say ‘Ah, it’s not necessary for them to have those players in that division’. But it’s not just the division that matters at Rangers, it’s the fact that you have 45,000 people coming to watch something on a football pitch…They are still losing money. But when you make a decision to be involved at Rangers, there is no common sense to it. The financial bit of Rangers Football Club and common sense don’t often go together.” That’s a remarkable statement when you think about it. What is wrong with Rangers attempting some common sense in their spending? Why be so accepting of a lack of common sense? It didn’t have to be that way. There is no law – apart from the law of hubris – that says Rangers have to lack common sense in their finances. This is the 2013 version of David Murray’s freakonomics. ‘We are Rangers and we’ll spend what we like’. Either through arrogance or stupidity – or both – that mindset hasn’t changed all that much despite the torment. What would have been so wrong with offering Black £3,000 a week instead of £7,500? What would have been the problem had McCoist been put on £400,000 from the point of administration instead of continuing on £825,000? Why is the wage bill so eye-wateringly high for a club in the Third Division? Because there is no common sense at Rangers, says Smith. Instead of just accepting it, how about doing something about it? Incredibly, it wouldn’t appear that the penny has dropped yet. The former manager deserves all the respect for what he achieved in the game, but in the on-going crisis at Ibrox, he is not blame-free. Rangers are still stuck in a financial time-warp. And many people have allowed it to happen.

RANGERS enjoyed average attendances of over 30,000 in the 1946/47 season and declared a profit of £12,000. Outwardly, everything seemed in fine fettle. But behind the great oak doors there was unrest. Turmoil at Ibrox is something which has engulfed the Glasgow institution in recent times, however a struggle for power at the club is far from a new phenomenon. There is nothing in club archives to suggest the relationship between the board and Bill Struth, the manager, was anything other than sound. But Struth's life revolved around the club. He spent every minute of the day, and often far into the evening, working at Ibrox. It would be natural for him to feel the directors were detached. The dynamics of the three-man Rangers board of Jimmy Bowie, George Brown and Alan Morton at that time was curious. Morton, although one of the best players to represent the club, was a quiet man. Brown, a schoolteacher by profession, was confident and opinionated. But he was very much subordinate to Bowie. Bowie approached Struth, who was 71, when Scot Symon retired as a player and joined East Fife as manager and informed him the board believed it was time for him to retire. Bowie told Struth there might be a position on the board if he did so. He also suggested appointing a No.2 who could be groomed to take over. But Struth had no intention of stepping down. Despite his age, he felt the role remained well within his capabilities. He took the mere suggestion as a challenge for his long-standing control of the club. The offer of a place on the board had another purpose - to split his bond with club secretary W. Rogers Simpson who was himself pressing for a position on the board. Both Simpson and Struth wanted places and wanted to retain their positions. However, Article 74 of the Memorandum and Articles of Association of The Rangers Football Club Limited stated: "No paid official or servant is eligible to hold the office of director." Simpson suggested that Article 74 be changed. This was not well received by Bowie, Brown and Morton. It appears the two factions then retreated to their trenches and relationships became strained. Simpson and Struth realised an amendment to the articles was needed and that change could only be effected through the shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting. The EGM would seek a change and also challenge the restriction on the size of the board. Since 1935 it had numbered just three. The planning for what became known as "The Boardroom Coup" was meticulous and, crucially, entirely constitutional. Proxy cards were issued to shareholders with a letter signed by Simpson and Struth. The letter called on the shareholders unable to attend the meeting to vote for them. In the letter Struth wrote: "The efficiency of the Rangers has not been achieved because of the directors, but in spite of them." The board said the move "threatened the future prosperity of the club". They called members to a meeting the night before the EGM to "explain the facts" and issue new proxy cards. But it was a desperate move. They had quite clearly been outmanoeuvred. Around 150 shareholders gathered at Ibrox for the EGM on June 12, 1947. Addressing the crowd, Bowie said the very future of the club was at stake. He warned changes could put it in control of those "with financial interests as against an administration solely concerned with maintaining high sporting traditions". But the motion was carried unanimously and Simpson and Struth were elected to the board at the AGM which followed the EGM while remaining in their roles. Bowie was ousted. He departed the stadium never to return. It was a harsh end to the career of a man who had served the club as a player, director and chairman. The episode provides an insight into Struth's character. He had dedicated his life to Rangers. He was not the kind to bow out and retire. His conduct throughout the crisis was uncompromising. His position would never be challenged again. http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/rangers/boardroom-coup-lit-blue-touch-paper-for-struths-ibrox-legacy-138840n.22380875

Alasdair Lamont @BBCAlLamont Craig Mather and Brian Stockbridge have been meeting Dave King in South Africa re future of Rangers. More to come soon. Well now... What can this mean?

Rangers manager Ally McCoist Chief executive Craig Mather and financial supremo Brian Stockdale flew to South Africa recently for talks with King. And manager McCoist would support his return. “The board deserve credit for making such an effort to attract someone like Dave King back to the club,” said McCoist. “This is a clear message that they are trying to do their best for Rangers. Someone like Dave King has already invested vast sums of his own money into Rangers, and he’s the kind of investor we need at this club again.” McCoist knows King’s heart is in the right place as far as Rangers is concerned, and that is a massive plus for the manager as boardroom ructions continue to blight the Light Blues. The annual general meeting is scheduled for October 24 when the blood-letting will officially take place, and the current board will look to fight off challengers. The board deserve credit for making such an effort to attract someone like Dave King back to the club Ally McCoist McCoist is only focused on events on the pitch, but he knows more cash is needed at Ibrox. He said: “The recent accounts have been well documented and we will need reinvestment at some stage in the future.

THE SPFL board are planning changes to their rulebook which could see clubs who enter administration being relegated instead of merely suffering points deductions. Any such move could spell bad news for some of football’s biggest names. Rangers have just announced losses of £14.4million and former director Dave King warned in August that the club could be plunged into administration by Christmas. Ally McCoist’s side are currently eight points clear at the top of League One after eight games but some financial analysts have claimed they may need another cash injection in order to see out the season. Hearts currently have no idea when – or if – they may be able to exit administration. Kilmarnock are £9.8m in debt and suffering plummeting attendances as fans protest about the running of their club by chairman Michael Johnston. In the last 12 years, Motherwell, Hearts, Livingston (twice), Morton, Dundee (twice) and Dunfermline have slid into administration while Gretna, Clydebank, Airdrieonians and Rangers subsequently fell into liquidation. Prior to the SPL and Scottish League merging this summer, the two bodies had their own rules when it came to punishing clubs who failed to live within their means. Rangers have just announced losses of £14.4million In the wake of Rangers’ demise, the SPL introduced a set penalty which saw the offenders deducted a third of the points they had won the previous season, as well as being hit by a signing embargo. Hearts were the first club affected by that ruling, starting this season in the Premiership with minus 15 points after going into administration in June. In November 2010, Dundee were handed a 25-point penalty by the SFL board – who had no limit to sanctions – because they had failed to live within their means for the second time in a decade. However, now the league bodies have merged, the SPFL board – chief executive Neil Doncaster, Eric Riley (Celtic), Duncan Fraser (Aberdeen), Stephen Thompson (Dundee United), Mike Mulraney (Alloa), Les Gray (Hamilton) and Bill Darroch (Stenhousemuir) – are updating the rules. “That’s where the prospect of relegation comes in,” said a well-placed Hampden source. “In the past the SPL’s hands were tied when it came to punishing clubs which suffered an insolvency event because they had authority over just the 12 members. “Consequently, they couldn’t impose a relegated club on the SFL. Now, though, there is the opportunity to provide a 42-club solution.” http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/435350/Bust-clubs-could-face-relegation?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-football-news+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+Football+Feed%29

................. the team is the priority. By Kheredine Idessane BBC Scotland The 65-year-old, who stepped down as chairman two months ago, said there is "an obvious suspicion" that is not presently the case. Smith believes the Ibrox club has to "get rid of the boardroom turmoil" and "settle down" if Rangers are to look forward and find a "normal path". He was also surprised by the loss of £14m in the club's recent accounts. "I knew they would make a loss but I wasn't quite sure just exactly what it would be so that was quite a surprise when it came out to be such a large figure," said Smith, who won 21 trophies during his two spells as manager. "It used to be that the wages of the footballing side used to be the major problem in clubs' finances but that's been cut down fairly dramatically from when I was there." A group of shareholders are trying to force changes on the Rangers board at the upcoming AGM, with the increasingly bitter feud reaching the Court of Session. When stepping down from his short-lived spell as chairman, Smith referred to a "highly-dysfunctional environment" at board level. He also voiced support for those hoping to join the board, although he stated that chief executive Craig Mather was doing a good job and hoped he would be able to continue. "Like everybody else, you just get frustrated that nothing seems to be settling down at the club," explained Smith. "They still have a fair amount of turmoil in the background. "Like everyone else, I don't think that the club can really look forward until that's erased. "There's the obvious suspicion that the club isn't the main reason why people are running the club at the present moment. "After the AGM, if we get back to the fact that Rangers are a football club and it should be run for the football club and for the football team. I think that that would be a massive step." Smith, who had current Ibrox boss Ally McCoist as assistant between 2007 and 2011, insists establishing confidence in the board is vital for the club, who are top of Scottish League One having won all their league matches so far. "I don't think there's a great deal of turmoil in the current board," he added. "There's turmoil being created because a lot of people want to see a change on that board. "That, I think, is the main crux of the problem at the present moment. The football aspect of Rangers is going as you'd expect it to go for a big club down in the lower divisions. "They're back on track, they're playing some good football but we still have this problem surrounding the board. I don't think the club can get back to being a settled club until that is eventually settled. "If you're looking at the job that the manager's doing at the present moment, who could complain about that?"

KEITH JACKSON follows the money trail at Rangers which reveals the staggering sums of cash that have changed hands at the Gers. OK, so you’re just back in from the paper shop. First off, congratulations on your purchase, needless to say you’ve made an excellent choice. Now, turn out your pockets and sift through the shrapnel. Is there a single shiny pound coin in the change? If so, what do you have planned for it? How far can you make it stretch? To help out, here’s some research on what you’ll get for your money. Homer Simpson novelty socks, a pack of chewing gum, a McChicken Sandwich, a three-minute hair colour revitaliser or de-frizz treatment, two second-class stamps, a track from iTunes, a pack of hair-clips, half a dozen morning rolls, two pints of milk or a kilo of sawdust. Alternatively, you could take it for a punt. Turn it into millions for the price of a pair of Primark knickers. Or, if you don’t fancy the odds of 125,000,000/1 here’s an even better idea. Buy Rangers Football Club. There is, of course, an old adage that you don’t make money from investing in football but this ongoing omnishambles at Ibrox bucks that trend quite spectacularly. Just lately, Rangers have been a sure thing. When Craig Whyte handed over his £1 coin to Sir David Murray on May 6, 2011, (he did hand it over didn’t he?) he was in fact, unlocking a jackpot. He was also opening up a financial scandal. Ever since, the level of sheer greed around this bloated cash cow of a club has been truly shameful and staggering. Also, it appears to be unrelenting. Just last week the club announced annual losses in excess of £14m. This was eye-watering stuff which might just have shaken a massive rump of the Ibrox support to its core. Yesterday’s protests against the board at Somerset Park suggest many of these fans have now woken up to the fact their club is being milked once again for all of its worth. So let us strip this story back to its starting point and examine the enormous sums that have come and gone between then and now. All for the price of Whyte’s pound. There is no precise way of knowing how much Donald Muir, the financial fixer who plucked Whyte from obscurity and delivered him on to Rangers’ doorstep, profited from his seminal role in this debacle. But given his paymasters at Lloyds wiped out an £18m debt overnight and also freed itself from the spectre of a £50m tax bill, it seems safe to assume Muir’s reward would have been suitably juicy. It was certainly an extraordinary piece of business. A great deal for Murray and Lloyds, a bargain for Whyte, almost certainly a lucrative pay day for Muir. But the onset of an unimaginable and unmitigated disaster for Rangers. And this was only just beginning. One of Whyte’s closest allies during his takeover was David Grier of Merchant Corporate Recovery. In 2011, shortly after Whyte was in place, MCR was bought over by Duff and Phelps. Again, it is safe to assume Grier was no worse off as a result of this buy-out. He was also given a leading executive role with Duff and Phelps. And Grier, having already been paid by Rangers to give Whyte financial advice, was now also about to cash in on the club’s administration. On February 14, 2012, Whyte succeeded in having Duff and Phelps appointed as administrators. The final bill for their services came to more than £5.5m. This, of course, was after Whyte had raised £27m from a season ticket deal with Ticketus. In his nine months as chairman he also stuffed the taxman for around £15m in unpaid PAYE. And the £18m of debt that he bought from Lloyds for a pound? That disappeared too in June 2012 when Charles Green, the man hand picked from nowhere by Duff and Phelps as the club’s saviour, failed to agree a CVA and liquidated the old company. Green then picked up Ibrox and Murray Park for a £5.5m snip, which was another astonishing deal given that it was conducted in a closed shop without other offers being invited by the administrators. OK, so how far has Whyte’s pound stretched by this stage? Conservatively – and even without that phantom £50m EBT bill – over £70m worth of solid trading has now been accounted for on the back of his initial transaction. And Green’s big hands haven’t even started rubbing yet. We know the rest inside out. Two lumps of season ticket cash, fetching a combined total of around £16m. An initial cash injection into the Newco of £12m. In December 2012, an IPO worth a further £22m. Now admittedly, this is back of a fag packet accounting but even so these figures add up to £50m. And yet last week the club’s financial director Brian Stockbridge signed off on a set of results and admitted almost all of it had vanished. In fact, a mind-blowing total of around £6m of the IPO cash was emptied out the back-door on ‘fees’ almost as soon as it had come in through the front. By June of this year, according to Stockbridge, £11m was all that was left in the Rangers’ account. Green, meanwhile, was buying himself a retirement castle in France (What is it with Rangers? How come everyone ends up in a castle in the end?) after trousering more than £1m in wages, bonuses and pay-offs in less than a year. In fact, he was sent on his way with a £600,000 goodbye when he should have been sacked for gross misconduct and told to leave the premises with nothing. Well, nothing more than his £3m worth of shares. The ever-generous Stockbridge signed off on that one too, having just awarded himself £200,000 for watching Ally McCoist win the Third Division title. The Rangers manager, of course, was also handsomely rewarded, with wages of £825,000 for winning the one title this club never previously had ambitions to win. And yet McCoist came cheap at half the price. Were it not for his public validation of Green then a wary Rangers support would not have rushed to stump up for 38,000 season tickets. And without this phenomenal level of backing, Green’s plans to make a killing on a hurried share issue would also have been up in smoke. So what is the Ibrox totaliser standing at now? £125m? Maybe a good deal more? All divvied up on the back of a one pound deal. Yes, this Rangers story is a disgusting tale of sickening greed, dragged out over a sustained two-and-a-half year period of obscene scavenging. All the while the club itself continues to drift towards the rocks for a second time with those at the helm seemingly too busy barricading themselves in to notice the imminent danger. And, really, who could blame them? In this shameless orgy they’ve enjoyed quite a bang for their buck and groped a great deal of flesh for a pound.

What a peach of a goal today from young Lewis MacLeod!

http://www.therangersstandard.co.uk/index.php/articles/current-affairs/289-terminological-inexactitude

ANDY LITTLE is desperate to win himself a new deal at Rangers as he seeks to keep making a name for himself at Ibrox. The striker has become an important player to the team, having scored six times already this season and notched a total of 25 last term. Little’s current contract expires at the end of the season, although there is an option to extend it by a further 12 months. At this stage he is keen to do that, having established himself as a first-team regular over the last 18 months or so at Ibrox. Little said: “I’d love to stay. I waited a long time to get my chance and in the last couple of years I’ve got a regular game. “I’ve got to play and it has been absolutely brilliant for me. I want to stay and hopefully I can if the club wants to keep me. “We’ve not had talks yet. My contract is up at the end of the season and the option’s there for an extra year. “It’s going to be another couple of years before we are back in the top flight and it would be great to be back playing at that level with Rangers.” As keen as Little is to remain a Rangers player, it seems manager Ally McCoist is every bit as eager to retain the 24-year-old. He has often preferred to play the Northern Ireland international on the right side of midfield because of the defensive qualities he often displays. But McCoist appreciates how effective he can be in front of goal too and added: “It would be crazy if we didn’t want to keep someone like Andy. “Anyone who scores the number of goals he got last year and indeed has chipped in with this year is good to have in the team. “He’s a very eventful player and there is always something going on around him when he is in and around the penalty box. “I’m sure Andy and I and his representatives will probably sit down in the not too distant future to chat about that.” http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/5223-little-eyes-new-deal

IF THERE is a pyramid of anxieties among Rangers fans in the wake of the publication of the club’s financial position, it will surely be topped by the dread that the new company which arose from the old last year will topple back into the abyss. Such an eventuality has been deemed in some quarters to be unlikely to the point of impossibility, but, since the voices of “reassurance” have come mainly from inside the Ibrox boardroom and other parties with vested interests, the natural retort to the claims would be a sceptical “they would say that, wouldn’t they?”. In the matter of drawing optimism from audited accounts which appear to confirm a level of pillaging that would have shamed the Vikings, the chief executive, Craig Mather, has tended to offer the least convincing case since Richard Nixon told the American people that “there can be no whitewash in the White House”. Mather’s most insistent defence against accusations of financial profligacy on an almost crippling scale has become something of a mantra: “We have money in the bank and we are debt-free.” This would be considerably more impressive if Rangers were debt-free by choice rather than necessity, the result of their recent history of collapse that left creditors of every size owed millions. With no credit line available, the club will be operating on a pay-as-you-go basis, thereby necessitating regular recourse to their “savings”. Since the latest balance sheet includes the great bulk of the season-ticket money for the present campaign, it seems legitimate to infer that withdrawals at the bank continue to exceed deposits. In this regard, the worry lurking one level below the fear of another administration will derive from the realisation that the figures released this week are already out of date. Since the accounts reach only until the end of June and costs have had to be met in the three full months since, it is reasonable to assume that the balance at the bank is appreciably less than the £11 million reported by the auditors. In the circumstances, it was hardly shocking to hear the testimony of a football finance specialist that, without a significant improvement in their revenues, Rangers will run out of money by the middle of next season. But anyone who takes a dispassionate view of the figures will surely concede that Mather and his directorial team are entitled to emphasise that the alarming £14m loss recorded last year was due in no small measure to a substantial number of non-recurring expenses and that the seemingly devastating figures contained in the audit are, in relation to the coming months, at least partly artificial. Mather, by and large, did not make enough of this aspect of the club’s finances and its potential impact on future trading. It is possible, of course, that he did not wish to draw attention to the ludicrous amounts of money paid to executives such as Charles Green (almost £1m) and Brian Stockbridge (more than £400,000) and the astonishing £825,000 salary of the manager, Ally McCoist. McCoist’s earnings could be considered perverse merely in the context of the club’s economic devastation over the past three years, but, from a purely footballing angle, it is an irresponsible reward for someone with no managerial experience operating in the fourth tier of Scottish football. His wages are nearly two-and-a-half times the £350,000 paid to Alex McLeish by the then owner, David Murray, in 2001. It was only when McLeish won the treble in 2003, at the end of his first full season, that he received an appropriate increase. The present manager’s income becomes absurd when it is set beside the club’s total annual turnover of £19m. To lend that ratio some kind of perspective, Manchester United would have to pay their new manager, David Moyes, almost £16m per annum. United’s recently declared record revenue of £365m means that they require a mere 19 days to match Rangers’ yearly “take”. Despite the hair-raising anomaly, McCoist and Stockbridge have attracted plaudits from some for agreeing, respectively, to take a wage cut and waive directorial bonuses that were already scandalous. It is rather like praising someone for not robbing a bank. King of cool Guardiola can land third crown In his new incarnation as a co-commentator for Sky Sports, Gary Neville frequently gives glimpses of the astuteness and articulacy that made him, as a player, Manchester United’s resident barrack-room lawyer. Rarely stuck for the telling phrase, the former England full-back had a ready riposte to colleague Martin Tyler’s observation on how cool Pep Guardiola appeared as his Bayern Munich strode imperiously around the Etihad Stadium, wiping the floor with the often formidable Manchester City as they went. “I’d be cool too, if I’d been given the jobs he has,” said Neville, an allusion to the suave Spaniard’s present employment and his previous post as manager of Barcelona. With two Champions League triumphs already on his cv from four years with Barca, Guardiola is an understandably short-priced favourite to collect a third with a side that looks much more comprehensively equipped than the one he left in Catalonia. Manchester City’s volatility – capable, in the space of a few weeks, of losing to Cardiff City and Aston Villa, while contemptuously dismissing neighbours United with a 4-1 hammering at Old Trafford that could have been even more emphatic – could make Bayern’s apparently breathtaking form unreliable. But City are clearly the kind of team who require to be stimulated by the occasion to produce their best, and there is little doubt they were taking Wednesday’s collision seriously. But Bayern, virtually unchallengeable all over the field, already hold the European title, and appear capable of matching, or even surpassing, their Franz Beckenbauer-inspired, three-in-a-row predecessors from the mid-1970s. http://www.scotsman.com/news/glenn-gibbons-rangers-financial-position-1-3127365

I'm not a member of the RST, but was wondering if any of you folks are going along to their AGM in the Ibrox Suite in a couple of hours time? Bit surprised there hasn't already been a thread about it. Was it a last minute thing?

Even from the vantage-point of this somewhat detached Celtic fan, Rangers officials sometimes appear to have a point when they occasionally complain about deep-seated hostility from sections of the media. A lot of fans believe there has been an attempt to drive them out of existence in the last few years with elements of the social media seeking to define public opinion on who is to blame for the misfortunes of the club. http://www.therangersstandard.co.uk/index.php/articles/rfc-politics/290-journalist-trophy-hunters-have-rangers-in-their-sights

Tomorrow morning the 4 proposed by the requisitioners will be in the Court of Session to ask the court to overturn the incumbents decision to not place their names on the voting forms.

Ally McCoist is poised to agree a new pay deal that will see his £825,000 salary cut by half in the coming days. The Rangers manager’s current remuneration — while his team play in the lower echelons — has been the subject of intense debate in the week club accounts showed an operating loss of £14.3million for the 13 months to June. McCoist recently went public with his belief that taking a wage cut was ‘the right thing to do’, a view shared by his backroom staff of Ian Durrant and Kenny McDowall. Ally McCoist Wage cut: Rangers boss Ally McCoist is poised to see his £825,000 wages slashed ‘The management team have been in negotiations with Craig [Mather, chief executive] and have, in fact, just agreed to take a wage cut,’ said McCoist last week. ‘I didn’t feel under pressure to do it. When I became manager, I had a contract placed in front of me and I just signed it. ‘I didn’t look at the wages or the length of contract or anything. I think it’s then a little harsh to criticise someone for doing that when you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But I do understand my responsibilities. ‘That’s why as a management team we’re taking a wage cut — we feel it’s the right thing to do and we can help the club.’ Sportsmail understands McCoist will see his pay drop to just over £400,000 once talks with Mather are concluded, with the wage bill of the management team falling from £1.2m to around £700,000. McCoist’s salary was not specifically mentioned in Tuesday’s 48-page annual report but has been a matter of public record for some time. With the club rebuilding after liquidation, supporters were dismayed to see former chief executive Charles Green made £933,000 in the period in question, while finance director Brian Stockbridge pulled in £400,000 — including a £200,000 bonus for Rangers winning the Third Division title. Former commercial director Imran Ahmad made £300,000 — the same salary Green’s successor Mather is now on. Despite a £7.8m wage bill for players being cut to around £6m, there has been widespread anger from fans that the £22m raised from December’s share issue has been frittered away, partly on high executive pay. This has led to a war of words, with Mather insisting former chairman Malcolm Murray approved such arrangements before he joined the club in April. Murray hit back by insisting ‘Green placements’ had effectively decided the levels of remuneraton. Murray claimed former director Phil Cartmell was head of the remunerations committee — a group who never met despite the latter’s best efforts. However, McCoist’s salary was predetermined when the old company was liquidated last year by virtue of Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE). This means that he automatically reverted to the sum he earned in his first season in management when Rangers were an SPL club. Meanwhile, Rangers have successfully applied to the SPFL for the postponement of their League One clash with Dunfermline a week tomorrow because three Ibrox players — Lee Wallace, Lewis Macleod and Arnold Peralta — will be on international duty. With Dean Shiels and Andy Little on stand-by for Northern Ireland, the league leaders decided to request a new date for the match with the Pars, who are five points behind them in second place. Although disappointed with the postponement of the game, which could now go ahead on Tuesday, November 5, Dunfermline manager Jim Jefferies said it was also the ‘biggest compliment ever’ for his team. He said: ‘I always thought the game had a chance of being postponed. They postponed their Ramsdens Cup tie against Queen of the South when it was on the weekend of the Belgium game. ‘Ally did say to me if they had boys away there would be the possibility they would apply for it to be changed, which is in the rules. ‘Ally was expecting it to be five players called up — but I joked with him it was just because we had beaten Ayr United 5-1! ‘I told him we were keen for the game to go ahead because we just want to keep playing — and so does Ally, but it’s their prerogative to appeal and they’ve had the go-ahead. ‘That’s the rules, there’s not a lot we can do about it. ‘I told our players Ally had given them the biggest compliment ever. Even with the size of squad they’ve got, they feel they need their international players for the game.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2443297/Rangers-boss-Ally-McCoist-set-agree-400-000-wage-cut.html#ixzz2ghr66WmS Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Posted by Roy Greenslade It will be interesting to see if any newspaper covers the fact that members of Britain's armed forces appeared to join in with Scottish football fans as they sang sectarian songs at a match yesterday. Initial reports suggest not. Some 400 uniformed soldiers, seamen and air force personnel attended an armed forces day at Ibrox, the Rangers ground. After a formal march and band music, a group of soldiers (they were in khaki) were filmed dancing, clapping and singing along with the crowd. Although it is difficult to make out the exact words on the video posted on YouTube, people have identified sectarian songs and chants celebrating the death of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Rival Celtic fans were quick to point to songs that are supposed to be banned from all Scottish football grounds under a new law passed by the Scottish parliament. One commenter to the YouTube site wrote of it being a "disgusting vile and tawdry spectacle". Another wrote: "Shocking stuff. I hope this vid is forwarded to the footballing and army authorities." Two media reports about the events that have been published - one here on the STV site and another here on the Daily Record site - make no reference to the soldiers' antics. The STV report mentioned that an army band "entertained fans" and quoted Major General Nick Eeles, general officer commanding Scotland, as saying it was hoped to make it into an annual event. The Record did write that "the match-day experience began in dramatic circumstances" but only because two marines "abseiled down the Govan stand ahead of kick-off, before delivering the match ball to the referee." How odd that both outlets missed the story? Or do their reporters think soldiers chanting jingoistic sectarian songs in unison with football fans is unworthy of comment? Incidentally, Saturday was not the official armed forces celebration day in Britain (that falls in the close season). The club, with the full approval of the military, decided to stage its own separate event. http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade

http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/5195-rangers-announce-annual-results

..........over cut price deal for Celtic fans THE Killie chief has been branded a “desperate man” after offering travelling fans cut-price briefs for this weekend's game at Rugby Park - while charging home punters full price. BUNGLING Killie chief Michael Johnston last night sparked outrage among his own fans AND Celtic supporters after offering cut-price briefs for Saturday’s league clash for the away section only. Johnston was branded a “desperate man” and accused of fleecing his own club’s support after only allowing travelling fans to buy cut-price briefs for the fixture at Rugby Park while charging home punters full price. Celtic announced on their website yesterday that season-ticket holders could buy briefs for just £20. That is a £6 less than Killie fans are being asked to pay. And while the move was welcomed by some Celtic fans it resulted in a furious backlash from those who had already purchased tickets and paid the full price before yesterday’s offer. Many are threatening to hand back their tickets unless they are issued with a £6 refund and vowing to stay away when their club head to Rugby Park again next March. While Celtic fans are outraged, relations between Johnston and the Killie support are already at an all-time low and this latest offer has only served to further antagonise matters. Kilmarnock Supporters’ Association chairman Sandy Armour described the offer as “madness”. He believes it will only fuel more calls within the Killie fanbase for boycotts of their own club. Armour said: “This defies belief. The fans are raging. “I’ve never known a situation where a chairman has shown so much contempt for his own fans. “If this isn’t the actions of a desperate man then I don’t know what is. I’ve no idea what he’s thinking. Every action he seems to take damages the club and this is the biggest own goal yet. “If you’re a Kilmarnock fan swithering about whether to go then why would you when you know the away fans are treated better? “I’ve never heard anything like this in my life before - it’s absolute madness. “The only thing I can think of is he’s under pressure to get money in. “For me, it’s the last act of a desperate man. I heard the ticket sales from Celtic fans was poor so it’s another case of trying to make a quick buck short term. “It looks like he’s just trying to get money in from anywhere. But if that was his thinking would he not have been better making it £20 for everyone? “What he doesn’t realise is he’ll get little take-up from the Celtic fans because it’s a live TV game on a Saturday lunchtime so taking a few quid off isn’t going to make the difference between fans going and not going. “In the long run he’ll lose far more from Kilmarnock fans walking away because of his actions. I think very few people will turn up on Saturday on the day. “Season ticket holders will be there but even some of them say they won’t go on the back of this. “There will be a meeting with fans in the next few weeks and some are looking for boycotts to be organised but the message is clear – we need rid of Johnston now.” And Ann McElhinney, secretary of the Affiliation of registered Celtic Supporters’ Clubs, was also fuming. She said: “The Affiliation have already taken over 800 tickets at £26. “It’s ridiculous and unfair on the fans who have already bought their tickets. “My phone hasn’t stopped with people saying they want the £6 refunded and if it isn’t going to be refunded then they’re asking if they can give the ticket back. “Historically, there isn’t a big uptake of tickets for Rugby Park and Killie have just made the situation worse with this. “The next time Celtic are there I’d be surprised if we even half-fill one stand due to this. They’ve shot themselves in the foot.” Killie, who are £9million in debt, were unavailable to make any comment on the move but Armour added: “I hope the bank can see what’s happening and take action before Johnston does any more damage to the club.” http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/kilmarnock-fans-rage-desperate-chairman-2298798

(I posted this thread on RM. I would like to have spent more time on this post but work commitments don't permit. I hope this can be the basis for further investigation, particularly amongst the accountants and solicitors on the forum, on a matter that does appear to have been missed by everyone from McMurdo to McCollco and everyone in between. Feel free to correct the post as necessary given my lack of time to follow through some points, but I believe it is basically correct and explains several unresolved issues from the Accounts. For the avoidance of doubt, no illegality is implied.) The Mystery of the £5.7m Share Issue Costs It was Charlie wot done it. One of the main issues raised from the Accounts was that £5.7m of costs were charged against the IPO proceeds. But we were told the IPO costs would be about £2.5m. So why the difference and who got the other £3.2m? I believe the answer is that there wasn’t actually £3.2m more physically paid out because it was simply a paper transaction. And it relates to the 5m shares issued to Charles Green basically for free. As we know, Green was due a percentage of the shares (complicated but basically more than 10% of the company post IPO) for doing the initial deal to buy the club and for getting the initial investors (pre-IPO) to buy £7.7m of shares. There is reference in the prospectus to both an employment contract and an option for Green to buy shares at 1p. The option was eventually satisfied by the issue of 5m shares to Green on 31 October 2012 as part of his agreement for the IPO to go ahead. Green ended up with under 8% of the company - less than originally agreed. This did not cost the company any money – it merely diluted the shareholdings of the initial pre-IPO investors. It is an important technical point that this issue of shares was heavily dependent on a successful IPO. When shares are issued, the value of those shares (as opposed to the issue price) needs to be reflected in the share capital and share premium accounts. We don’t have the information to know exactly what value was put on these shares because nor do we know exactly how much the IPO costs were, but I would suggest 50p-70p is likely (£2.5m-£3.5m) given the IPO price and the information previously leaked about the pre-IPO share issues. So far as the company was concerned, the premium element of this deemed value of shares was to be charged against the share premium account as part of the cost of doing the IPO, so it had no net effect on the cash raised. Read Accounts note 23 and think of it like this: 10-6=4. If you add 2 onto both numbers you get 12-8=4. You still end up with the same number. It is accountants playing with bits of paper. Why was this done? One consequence is that the (say) £3m doesn’t then get charged to the profit and loss account, which would have worsened our loss. But I don’t think that’s the real reason. It was to shift what may be an income tax matter (up to 45%) for Green, to be a capital gains tax matter (up to 28%). HMRC may want to look further at this structure but Green has indemnified the company against any tax that arises, which again points to this being the reason, so it’s not really our problem. For this structure to work, the share premium had to be charged on paper against the IPO money. That’s why it looks like the IPO cost so much and why the issue to Green was specifically dependent upon a successful IPO. But in layman's terms, it didn’t really cost £5.7m in money paid out – the (say) £3m was really Green’s cut for the initial work. That was of course before we knew what league we would be playing in, hence Mather’s comments today are not incorrect. A further point worth noting is that the £7.7m initial fund raising exercise is what effectively paid for the purchase of the Club, not the IPO money. It was the initial (pre-IPO) shareholders who gave Green a free ride, not the IPO proceeds. The purchase of the Club appears in the Cashflow Statement as a result of merger (as opposed to acquisition) accounting - an unusual one even for accountants. So Green walked away with not just £933,376 salary but also 5m shares worth about £2.5m by today’s prices. Nice work if you can get it. The costs of £5.7m charged to the IPO share proceeds are therefore technically correct but the real pound note cost to us was closer to the original estimate of £2.5m The rest was bits of paper that did not affect the cash from the IPO or the shareholders who invested in the IPO.

LET me start with a confession: I like Monster Munch. In fact, I’m particularly fond of pickled onion. There you go, I just wanted to get that out in the open because something happened at Forfar at the weekend that made my mind drift back to one of the most controversial periods of my career. And, yes, I realise there were a few. But there was nothing quite like the time when Paul Le Guen told me I was finished at Rangers and people tried to make it out it was over a bag of crisps. For those who don’t remember, sit back and let me explain. We’ll start last Sunday at Station Park where Rangers struggled to a 1-0 win and got slaughtered for their display. I didn’t see it but by all accounts it was dire and a throwback to last season when Ally McCoist had a hard time of things in the Third Division. But there was one big difference between Sunday and the worst days of the previous campaign when so many points were dropped at places such as Peterhead, Stirling and Berwick. The difference was Rangers won. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying for a second there’s any excuse for a team like Rangers to be struggling to win at Forfar. There isn’t. What I am saying, however, is that even though they had a bad day at least they left the place with three points. That wasn’t always the case last season and, to me, it’s a sign some of the club’s old standards are on the way back. Standards that I was raised on. Standards that Rangers were built on. Standards that I thought might disappear for good during Le Guen’s time in charge seven years ago. A lot has been made about my relationship with the Frenchman. I know there are Rangers fans out there who still think I undermined him or stabbed him in the back. So I’d like to use this column to set a few things straight. First, you have to understand the way I was brought up as a kid working under John Brown and John McGregor. They kept things simple: At Rangers nothing less than three points is ever acceptable. Yes, they wanted us to play well and encouraged us to express ourselves but the most important lesson they taught us was that you’ll never cut it as a Rangers player if you pull that shirt on and think it’s OK to lose. That was driven into my head every day of my young life until it became a state of mind and a way of life. So yes, I’ll hold my hands up right now. To this day I am guilty of wanting to win every game I play. I know I run around with my wee face all screwed up, moaning at everyone and everything but it’s only because I care so much about winning. To me, that’s just the Rangers way – if you don’t care if you lose or draw then you’ve no business being there. And that’s was the root of my problem under Le Guen. The truth is, the longer it went on the more I was struggling to recognise the Rangers I had grown up with. Under Le Guen, it was becoming acceptable to drop points on a Saturday. In fact, it was becoming the norm. And I admit I just couldn’t get my head around it. Now, people have their own opinions about what went on between us. But I was there, I know what went on inside that dressing room and I’d challenge him to deny or contradict anything I’m about to tell you. Week after week I walked off the pitch to be told: “It’s OK, let’s stick together and just move on to the next game.” That’s alright after one bad game. Or maybe if a team is going through a wee sticky patch. But not EVERY week. After EVERY embarrassing result. It was a gradual build-up, over weeks and months. His shrug-of -the-shoulders attitude was eating away at me inside because this was the club I loved. I was the Rangers captain and these results were killing me. It was humiliating. And the worst bit of it was, I could see it rubbing off on others until there were players sitting in that dressing room who didn’t seem to care if we won, lost or drew. The standards I had grown up with were disappearing. I held my tongue as best I could but it was only a matter of time until I eventually snapped. That day came on December 27, 2006, at Inverness. We had been winning 1-0 but ended up losing 2-1. I think we slipped to fourth or fifth in the table. I mean, it was getting ridiculous. And what did I hear when I walked into that dressing room? “It’s OK. We must stick together.” That was it, I just couldn’t listen to it any more. So I said: “Aye, we must stick together. But it’s not f****** OK that we’ve lost another three points. What part of that don’t you get? This is Glasgow Rangers you are working for.” I admit I lost the head. I was just so angered by the lack of passion. I couldn’t look round any more at people who didn’t care if Rangers won or lost. Yes, maybe I was guilty of letting my emotions boil over. Maybe I lost my cool in that dressing room on that day. But I just couldn’t take any more of it. But that was it. It wasn’t as if I asked the guy outside for a square-go. I put my hand on my heart and say, I never caused that man one problem. I never once knocked down his door. Yes, OK I might have eaten the occasional packet of Monster Munch which might have been against his nutritional rules but come on? Listen, I’m all for players looking after themselves and eating well. But no one is going to tell me a packet of pickled onion now and again is going to take years off your career. It’s nonsense. Is that what people mean when they say I undermined him? Honestly, I don’t know where all that comes from and it makes me angry just thinking about it. It was all I read in the papers or heard on the phone-ins. I swear none of it was true. I was guilty of one thing – being passionate about my club and going a bit daft at Inverness. But I had no idea the price he wanted me to pay for it until I walked into Murray Park a few days later to prepare for an away game at Motherwell. His assistant, Yves Colleu, shouted for me and I went into the manager’s office and Le Guen began to speak to me like I was some sort of alien. I wasn’t even allowed to sit down. He just told me I’d never play for the club again and to leave the building. I was in a daze. I got my bag and walked to my car without saying anything to the other lads. I got a few hundred yards down the road before I pulled in and realised what had just happened. I was shattered. As things turned out, it was Le Guen’s Rangers career that was over. Very soon after that, Walter Smith was back in charge. And overnight Rangers got their standards back. That’s why the result at Forfar pleased me the other day. And put me right in the mood for a packet of my favourite crisps.

The shareholders group looking to force their way onto the Ibrox board have urged supporters to continue protesting in order to keep the pressure on the current Ibrox regime. Director Paul Murray and Jim McColl are set to unveil their alternative vision for the club this week. Rangers supporters protested inside and outside the stadium on Saturday where Ally McCoist’s side thrashed Stenhousemuir 8 - 0. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/rumour-mill-rangers-protests-messi-out-souttar-to-sunderland-1-3117871

Ally McCoist on Friday night revealed he has taken a wage cut in a bid to help Rangers slash costs. The Ibrox boss and his management team have agreed to a reduction in their salaries amid fears much of the £22million raised last December through an institutional share issue has been wiped out. A promise by finance chief Brian Stockbridge to produce audited accounts by mid-September has so far failed to materialise, while sacked commercial director Imran Ahmad has launched a £500,000 court battle against the club. As the club’s finances take centre stage at a bloody boardroom battle at an AGM next month, however, McCoist has agreed to ease the burden by scaling down his £700,000-a-year salary. ‘It’s just been agreed that the management team are certainly taking a wage cut,’ the Rangers boss on Friday night told plzsoccer.com’s Football Show. ‘I didn’t feel under pressure to do it because effectively I signed a contract. People forget that when I became manager of the club someone put a contract in front of me and I just signed it as simple as that. ‘I didn’t even look at it, to be quite honest with you. I didn’t look at wages or length of contract, I just said: “I’m signing that because it’s what I want to do”. ‘So I think it is a little bit harsh criticising someone when you don’t know what is going to happen in the future.’ McCoist, meanwhile, appealed to Rangers fans to throw their support behind betting bad boy Ian Black. The Ibrox midfielder returns to the team against Stenhousemuir on Saturday after a three-match suspension imposed for breaching SFA rules on gambling on football matches and McCoist hopes supporters will back their man. ‘I’d be very hopeful that it’s now the case that we can all move on,’ said McCoist. Black is a regular target for opposition supporters — but has yet to experience booing from his own fans. McCoist believes the midfielder will cope with that if it happens. ‘Listen, football divides opinion all the time — especially at this club in the last two years,’ he said. ‘That’s a natural part of being involved at this club. I get stick myself about performances and team selections. It’s part and parcel. That will continue to be the case. ‘But I feel the most important thing is that, while we all have different opinions and opinions will be divided, the main focus and sole aim is the club’s focus to get back to where we want to be.’ Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2436100/Ally-McCoist-takes-Rangers-pay-cut.html#ixzz2gAQuhqlE Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook