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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30009546 Hibernian: Pat Stanton leads fans' buyout campaign Hibernian legend Pat Stanton is to head a new group that hopes to unite fans behind a bid to buy the club. BuyHibs is backed by the Erin Trust, Hibernian Supporters Association, the Formers Players Association and Hibernian Shareholders Association. Stanton has called for a meeting with Tom Farmer and want Hibs' owner to name his price for the club. "The BuyHibs campaign has the ultimate aim of buying our club," said the former Hibs player and team manager. BuyHibs campaign director Neil Wheelan "The club are failing on and off the park and the need for change has never been greater; the club needs a new direction with fresh drive and investment coming into the club." The group was formed following supporters groups meetings and a survey of more than 4,000 fans carried out by Supporters Direct Scotland. "We are in the fortunate position that the motivation for BuyHibs has not been generated from an emergency situation through a threatened insolvency like supporters of other clubs have been faced with," said Stanton. "We want to be in a position where we can make a positive contribution to the long-term position of our club and to be ready to buy the club when the opportunity arises. "We are asking fans to pledge to provide funds which will allow BuyHibs to drive positive change and to give an indication of what size of stake is achievable. "We are open to work with all Hibernian-minded people and groups who share the same goal. "As a first step, we call on Sir Tom Farmer and Rod Petrie to meet with us to find and promote a positive and sustainable change for the betterment of Hibernian and to provide Sir Tom with a clear and deserved exit from the club he has backed for many years." Hibs are presently playing in the Scottish Championship after being relegated from the top flight last season. Cowdenbeath's Callum Gallagher challenges Hibs' Matthew Kennedy Hibernian are in the Scottish Championship after being relegated last season BuyHibs campaign director Neil Wheelan said: "The club are failing on and off the park and the need for change has never been greater; the club needs a new direction with fresh drive and investment coming into the club. "The potential within the Hibernian fan base is enormous and this must be used to take the club forward. "The club needs sweeping changes to bring a new and more positive outlook and the required fresh investment. "It would appear that the current custodians have no desire to invest to move the club forward so we call on Sir Tom Farmer to remain true to his word and pass the Football Club, Easter Road Stadium and the East Main Training Academy into a community-backed vehicle that safeguards the future of all assets." In August, a consortium of investors claimed to have made a £3.5m offer to take control HFC Holdings Ltd, the company that owns about 98% of the Easter Road club. The fans survey by Supporters Direct Scotland, which has helped other clubs move to fan ownership, revealed that 84% of Hibs fans wanted the Edinburgh club to follow that path. Slightly less - 80% - also believe Easter Road Stadium should be safeguarded and that any change to that would require fan approval, while 68% said that they would be willing to join a membership scheme to provide additional income for the club. Andrew Jenkin, of Supporters Direct Scotland, added: "Supporters are the heart and soul of any football club and the BuyHibs campaign shows Hibernian have many passionate, knowledgeable and highly-skilled supporters who would like to be further involved in the running of the club."

Rangers fans group Sons of Struth threaten boycott of Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct shops Ashley has been targeted after purchasing the naming rights to Ibrox for £1. The threat of a boycott of Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct retail group along with the business interests of other Rangers directors has been made by dissident fans’ group, the Sons of Struth, following a ballot of supporters. The group, named after Rangers’ longest serving manager, Bill Struth, staged a demonstration behind the directors’ box at Ibrox during the team’s recent meeting with Inverness in the Scottish Communities League Cup, but have now raised the possibility of direct action against McGills Buses, a transport group owned by the Rangers football board chairman, Sandy Easdale, and his brother James, who serves on the plc board. Ashley has been targeted because Sandy Easdale recently revealed that the naming rights to Ibrox had been sold to the Newcastle United owner for £1. Easdale himself has been the subject of condemnation from the Rangers support - whose boycott of season tickets has reduced the club’s income from that source by half - because he has been seen in the company of Rafat Rizvi, who was sentenced to 15 years in absentia when convicted of fraud in an Indonesian court. Rizvi, a UK citizen, is the subject of an Interpol international arrest warrant but cannot be extradited because the UK has no treaty with Indonesia. He was pictured recently in Glasgow along with Easdale and Malyasian businessman, Datuk Faizoull Bin Ahmad, who was named as a potential investor in the troubled club, although he subsequently denied any intent to take a stake or any knowledge of Rizvi. The Sons of Struth issued a statement detailing the results of their poll, which did not specify how many fans’ opinions had been sampled, although it is thought that they have around 3000 members. The statement read: "Due to recent events, such as Sandy Easdale's meeting with convicted fraudster Rafat Rizvi, his broken promises of having investors lined up and the selling of our stadium’s naming rights to Mike Ashley for £1.00, Sons of Struth have received an increased level of calls for tougher action against the board, Sports Direct and, Easdale-owned McGills Buses. “Recent polling of our members resulted in 99.35% calling for the removal of Sandy Easdale as a Rangers director and 97.19% wishing Mike Ashley to cancel his 7 year contract for the naming rights to Ibrox, 92.87% want to boycott McGills buses and 87.47% want to boycott Sports Direct in attempt to achieve the removal of Sandy Easdale and cancellation of Mike Ashley's naming rights agreement. “89.64% of those polled want to see some sort of boycott at matches with an aim of removing Sandy Easdale. The general feeling amongst our members is that he lies to fans and shows no respect to his position through his close association with Jack Irvine and his meeting with a man on Interpol's most wanted list. His words and actions are disrespectful to the position he holds as a director of Rangers Football Club. “Our firm belief is that Sandy Easdale is an obstacle to future outside investment and, despite his recent outlandish claims that the fans' actions may put the club's future in danger, we firmly believe that after 100,000 season ticket sales in three seasons the blame for the clubs perilous financial position lies squarely in the boardroom. “The club operate a "football board" which is viewed in the eyes of the fans as nothing more than a vehicle to allow Sandy Easdale a directorship as he may not be eligible for a seat on the PLC board. Does this "football board" have any other purpose? “We shall release our intentions for further protests and boycott action in the very near future and in the meantime would encourage the board to immediately remove Sandy Easdale if they wish to avoid this. “Sandy Easdale has been heard in the past to claim that if the Rangers support do not want him at Ibrox he would leave. We would ask him to take the hint and go before his association with our club causes more damage. “Sons of Struth also call on Mike Ashley to cancel his naming rights contract before the 11th of October. If he still retains the naming rights after this point we will instigate an immediate series of actions aimed at his Sports Direct stores. “We would ask all Rangers supporters in the meantime to use discretion when deciding to give either Sports Direct or McGills Buses their custom. We will hold a public meeting of Rangers fans in October at at a venue to be announced." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/rangers/11131196/Rangers-fans-group-Sons-of-Struth-threaten-boycott-of-Mike-Ashleys-Sports-Direct-shops.html

The Rangers Report Podcast sat down with Richard Atkinson of Supporters Direct Scotland to discuss the prospects of Rangers First. Give it a listen as you decide whether or not you plan on investing in the fan ownership plan. You can listen on Podbean or iTunes. Plus we'd love to hear some feedback on the pod as we incorporate more guests going forward. WATP

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All, If you've not listened to WWTC podcast before then this is an excellent opportunity to "ease-in" to our style of delivery We had Richard Atkinson from Supporters Direct on to talk about Rangers First, which he did to great length, he also kindly answered questions from the team and from twitter he also got his keys out! give it a watch if you have any doubts about RangersFirst as a Fan ownership vehicle or you just want to see his face on a big telly. Feel free to share with other bears! you can follow the pod on twitter @wwtc_pod also on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/We-W...ast/1446242595610661?ref=hl&ref_type=bookmark Cheers!

Article submitted by Andy Steele: SDS Survey: No Issues? No Chance! News that a survey by fans' body Supporters' Direct Scotland has found that while the vast majority of fans felt the game in Scotland had no issues with racism or homophobia, it had a big, big problem with sectarianism. This highlights not just the issue of social attitudes and football, but, sadly, the problem people have with perceiving themselves as part of the problem. One can assume fairly safely that for such a result to be obtained a good proportion of respondents were either non-Old Firm fans, or if Old Firm fans, Celtic supporters. I would be willing to place a hefty wager that the only fans who feel strongly that there is little sectarianism in Scotland would be those supporters the others consider to be the problem: Rangers fans. One must always, in such debates, pander to the thin skinned and establish that yes, one does think there is an issue and yes, Rangers fans most of all need to deal with it. A major issue, though? I don't see it in my day-to-day life, though I may of course simply be lucky or blinkered. Having established that denial is not on the agenda, though, I'd like to examine the other two aspects mentioned, homophobia and racism. If Scottish football has no issue with racism it is because the game is played, watched, commentated on and written about in what is a virtual monoculture. The BBC can count Kheredine Iddeshane, who to guess from his name may be of middle east extraction, and STV Rhaman Bardwan, but that's about it. The sight of players from non-European backgrounds has diminished of late, while managers and chairmen are exclusively white. No racism? Well, maybe if we understand that creating an almost exclusively European ethnic identity for the game will go a long way to excluding those from without such a background, it may expain why there's 'no racism': there's no cultural mix in which it might appear. Perhaps, if we actively created an environment which encouraged diversity, and focused on policing the resultant mix effectively, we may find we're not quite so tolerant as we might like to think. Or we may not - who knows? Casual racism has certainly been part of my west of Scotland experience: I am inclined to believe that 'no issue' is a complacent and boastful conclusion not based on evidence. But since many have called long and loud for such an approach to sectarianism, it seems only logical to apply it to these other areas as well. And what about homophobia? 'Get fucking up, ya poofy cunt' is, for the student of English, a fascinating sentence, but it's hardly indicative of a tolerant atmosphere. You'll hear it, and variants thereon, at every ground every week when an opposition player is apparently injured, though: 'no issue'? When 'Off the Ball' described a poor flag as 'poofy' I actually, for the first time in my life, got off my arse and complained. I got a reply: it was drivel. Credit where it's due, though, the programme presumably realised they were out of order and have since addressed the issue interestingly and humourously. What the incident that riled me shows, though, is that many of us are actively discriminatory without even realising it: Stuart Cosgrove was no more actively trying to put down homosexuality than I am actively trying to create a Protestant theocracy when I sing 'No Surrender' at Ibrox. The effect, nevertheless, can be non-inclusive. My singing of that song is based on the fact that it creates a great atmosphere first and last, and not in any way because I care about or know about Irish or religious history. Others, though, hear my singing and feel excluded or offended by it. What to me is a noise is to others an insult - if Tom English, easily the best analyst of the game at the moment, is freaked out by it I have to think twice. That's not to say I will agree with him, but it gives pause for thought. Plainly all these issues are hyper-sensitive with absolutes thin on the ground, but there's simply no way we have absolutely 'no issue' with racism or homophobia. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that in our game, all three of these issues exist to varying degrees, but only one is taken seriously and, conveniently, it's the one that can be blamed on someone else. Sectarianism deserves to be taken seriously, but so too do other forms of bigotry: not least sexism, which in Scotland remains rampant. I find women as sexually stimulating as the next man, assuming he's straight, but that's no reason to objectify them or base a professional appraisal on their chests or backsides: that's still the default position of far too many men. We've plenty issues which could do with being addressed both in the game and in the country, but the first step we take will have to be from our own front doors. Blaming everything on Rangers and Rangers fans while insisting the rest of the land is a paradise of tolerance and diversity is doing no-one any favours: a more honest appraisal of our own prejudices would reveal some or all of these issues, far from being non-existent, might be visible in the mirror tomorrow morning as you shave. http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/latest-news/252-sds-survey-no-issues-no-chance