Rangers real culprit - leggo

[ian1964 10,831]

http://leggoland2.blogspot.com/2011/04/rangers-real-culprit.html

[Bluedell 5,920]

Advocaat didn't sign any cheques. Murray was in sole control of the budget and only he can be blamed.

[craig 5,199]

I assume that leggo is blaming Advocaat then ? Ian, as an aside, any chance you can copy and paste the articles from leggo - I get timed for blogging sites in the office

 

As BD says, Advocaat simply spent what he was approved to spend. The real culprit, as I said on another thread yesterday, is SDM. Anyone suggesting otherwise is merely deflecting on behalf of SDM.

[ian1964 10,831]

I assume that leggo is blaming Advocaat then ? Ian, as an aside, any chance you can copy and paste the articles from leggo - I get timed for blogging sites in the office

 

As BD says, Advocaat simply spent what he was approved to spend. The real culprit, as I said on another thread yesterday, is SDM. Anyone suggesting otherwise is merely deflecting on behalf of SDM.

 

 

 

WHEN Rangers fans discuss the mess their club is in and try to play the game game, one name is always missing.

 

DICK ADVOCAAT!

 

Yet had the Dutchman never dallied at Ibrox there is a strong case for saying Rangers would not have plunged so deeply into debt.

 

Of course owner Sir David Murray is not without blame.

 

But surely no Rangers supporter could argue with what motivated Murray to take the gamble the club is still paying for.

 

To get a complete grasp of why Rangers took on so much debt you have to go back to the autumn of 1997, when Murray decided Walter Smith was not the man to take Rangers on to a new level in Europe.

 

He and the Rangers support craved success in the Champions League. They wanted to see the Ibrox club not merely compete in the group stages, but qualify for the knock out rounds and become serious players in the latter stages of the competition.

 

Murray identified Advocvaat as the man to do that, and the chairman was willing to bankroll the Dutchman.

 

Right away Advocaat showed it was going to be a case of out with the old.

 

The men who had given Rangers nine in a row were treated with scant respect by the wee Dutchman.

 

Out went Andy Goram, Stuart McCall, Ian Durrant and Ally McCoist.

 

It is worth noting afterwards Goram had a successful spell at Motherwell, and even turned out for Manchester United, McCall played in the English Premiership, McCoist played for Scotland, while Durrant won more caps as a Kilmarnock player than he had before.

 

None of the men Advocaat discarded were washed up.

 

Rino Gattuso was another who Dicky didn't like and was soon shown the door.

 

Then there was fans' favourite, Jorg Albertz. He stayed, but it was obvious Advocaat did not rate the skilful midfielder and the relationship between the Dutchman and the German was always strained.

 

Soon a new stream of stars poured into Ibrox. Dutch duo Artur Numan, Gio Van Bronckhorst were class acts.

 

But Lionel Charbonnier, Goram's replacement, was erratic, never in the same class as the Goalie, and soon made way for the more reliable Stefan Klos.

 

Gabby Amato was another who cost a lot but only gave glimpes of greatness.

 

There were oddities too. Colin Hendry, at the time the Scotland captain, arrived, but strangely was not given the captain's armband at Ibrox.

 

But there existed some hope that, as far as Europe was concerned, Murray would get his wish to sit at the top table.

 

After surviving a scare against Irish minnows Shelbourne, Rangers enjoyed UEFA Cup success against the also rans of PAOK Salonika, unrated Beitar of Israel, and the more difficult Bayern Leverkusen, before succumbing to Italian, Parma.

 

That defeat was avenged in the Champions League qualifiers the next season, but once into the group stages, Advocaat's Rangers did no better than Smith's sides. Rangers failed to make it to the knock out stages.

 

There was not even the consolation of a run in the UEFA Cup, such as the one Smith gave the fans when he steered Rangers to the final three years ago. Advocaat's team went up against Borussia Dortmund and went out.

 

The following season, 2000-01 it was the same again. Failure to emerge from the Champions League group stages, followed by immediately being knocked out of the UEFA Cup.

 

And all the time Advocaat was spending, spending and spending, like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

 

Ronald De Boer, Michael Mols, Andrei Kanchelskis, Claudio Cannigia, Michael Ball, Bert Konterman, Claudio Reyna, Christian Nerlinger, Billy Dodds, Russell Latapy, Fernando Ricksen....

 

And finally, the straw which broke the camel's back, �£12M for Tore Andre Flo.

 

All of that and, as far as Europe was concerned, Rangers were no more successful than they had been under Smith.

 

And a lot less successful than they were to become after Smith returned.

 

On the home front Advocaat, up against Jo Venglos, won the treble.

 

And with Celtic in crisis the following season - think John Barnes and Inverness Caley - Advocaat's Rangers retained the title and the Scottish Cup.

 

However, that is what is expected of a Rangers manager.

 

Alex McLeish, lumbered with picking up the pieces after Advocaat, took Rangers to a treble and two titles too.

 

Certainly Rangers played some superb football under Advocaat, and some fans claim it is the best they have ever seen from their team.

 

Perhaps they are not old enough to recall Jim Baxter and Ian McMillan.

 

But most could recall Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup, and my view is the Smith team they played in stands comparison with Advocaat's

 

Smith's side also had a greater degree of the traditional Rangers fighting spirit.

 

The lack of such dogged determination was soon exposed when Martin O'Neill arrived to build a strong Celtic team.

 

It soon became obvious that Advocaat's failure in Europe was going to be repeated on the home front too as Celtic won the treble in O'Neill's first season, and streaked ahead in the title during first half of the 01-02 campaign.

 

Advocaat was on the run, and he displayed a national characteristic in December 01 when he hoisted the white flag and retreated to a director of football role, which he occupied at enormous expense to Rangers for a further year.

 

When Murray brought Advocaat in, he was willing to invest, knowing that success in the Champions League would bring Rangers a financial return on that investment.

 

There would have been bigger paydays from UEFA, plus an automatic qualifying slot.

 

Season ticket prices could have been increased, with tickets for Champions League knock out matches costing plenty too.

 

More and more companies would have been keen to pay more and more to be associated with Rangers.

 

That was the future Murray dreamed of for Rangers and why he employed Advocaat and then bankrolled the Dutchman to such an extent.

 

Murray's mistake was in picking the wrong man for the job.

 

For Advocaat failed to deliver in Europe. And, in the end, he failed in Scotland too.

[calscot 0]

I'm inclined to agree with Leggat.

 

Yes, SDM is ultimately the one who signs the cheques but he was taking advice from an appointed "expert", and definitely not the first to fall for the "just one more big spend and we'll be there" line. Once you go down that road it's easy to throw bad money after good on the belief that you only need one more piece of the jigsaw to complete the picture.

 

If Advocaat had actually delivered what he promised, eg the CL title or even consistently getting to the semis, the riches coming from such success would have been quite a decent offset to the losses we incurred and the boost to the reputation of our club would have gone down in history.

 

Advocaat "played" SDM like a manipulative, high maintenance, gold digging, trophy wife, and like an ugly, conceited, super-rich bachelor the guy fell hook line and sinker for the seduction.

 

SDM should have been the one to say no, but the wool was firmly over his eyes until the spending on Flo and resultant massive failure even domestically. That's when he broke from the stupor to see the devastation but was at least contrite enough to foot �£51M of the bill.

 

Our hopefully former owner was culpable, yes, but you can't just absolve the one who cast the whole sorry spell...

[craig 5,199]

SDM is a businessman and if he was fed a line of "just one more big spend" then he allowed himself to be told that on multiple occasions. That shouldnt happen when at the helm and responsible for the budgets.

 

Or were there no budgets ? Was there no long-term planning ?

 

How about the fact that he underwrote a 50 million plus share issue to wipe most of the debt away... only to then see it escalate to present levels under his stewardship again ?

 

Even your statement "its easy to throw bad money after good" suggests that SDM was to blame. No-one should be throwing bad money after good. Sure, be ambitious, but he was being ambitious with someone else's money (the bank's as it now is).

 

I know pete feels that Advocaat is a money grabber - but how do you know that Advocaat was manipulating SDM ? Was it not SDM himself who said "for every fiver Celtic spend we will spend a tenner" ? He is as egotistical as they get is SDM, and that being the case he made this statement without any request from his manager. He was puffing his chest out in bravado and telling the world he was bigger and better than our rivals - and his own ego prevented him from seeing that he shouldnt be doing it.

 

Was Advocaat the one who was negotiating the financial aspects of the deals ? I suspect not. Advocaat was responsible for creating a team worthy of winning trophies - and any manager charged with that would ask for the very best players that money can buy. The responsibility to deliver those players and, in fact, to deny a manager such exorbitant requests is the person with the purse strings.

 

Many, many managers still do what Advocaat did, which was only to want the best players and without regard to the financing (short AND long term) of those signings. The responsibility, and obligation, to ensure that the long-term future of the club is protected does not lie with the manager, it lies with the Chairman and the Board and the Officers of the Company/Club.

 

There are very few managers, even in this day and age, who will think of the financial aspects of a club (Wenger springs to mind) rather than the playing side. Their job is to put the best team on the pitch that they can under the constraints that they are placed under. Those constraints should be determined by the Chairman andh is Board, in our case he was also our owner.

 

Having the wool pulled over his eyes does not allow SDM to be granted being absolved of blame - it is hardly plausible deniability.

 

SDM may have been contrite enough to foot 51M of the bill - but he doesnt seem to have been astute enough to ensure it didnt happen again.

 

SDM was, is, and always will be, the person to blame for our sorry financial demise - at least in my opinion.

[Bluedell 5,920]

I'm inclined to agree with Leggat.

 

Yes, SDM is ultimately the one who signs the cheques but he was taking advice from an appointed "expert", and definitely not the first to fall for the "just one more big spend and we'll be there" line. Once you go down that road it's easy to throw bad money after good on the belief that you only need one more piece of the jigsaw to complete the picture.

 

If Advocaat had actually delivered what he promised, eg the CL title or even consistently getting to the semis, the riches coming from such success would have been quite a decent offset to the losses we incurred and the boost to the reputation of our club would have gone down in history.

 

Advocaat "played" SDM like a manipulative, high maintenance, gold digging, trophy wife, and like an ugly, conceited, super-rich bachelor the guy fell hook line and sinker for the seduction.

 

SDM should have been the one to say no, but the wool was firmly over his eyes until the spending on Flo and resultant massive failure even domestically. That's when he broke from the stupor to see the devastation but was at least contrite enough to foot �£51M of the bill.

 

Our hopefully former owner was culpable, yes, but you can't just absolve the one who cast the whole sorry spell...

 

 

Advocaat never promised us the CL title or that we would consistently get to CL semis.

 

The rest of your post is total speculation, and doesn't really match up with Murray's claims at the time. Murray was relying on investment from a third party that never materialised. He was well aware of the financial situation and resorted to misleading shareholders at at least one AGM when questioned about the debt levels.

 

Murray is a gambler as has been pointed out by another notable poster recently and that's why Rangers ran up the debt and why MIH has got itself into so much trouble. If it hadbn't been Advocaat, it'd would have been some other manager.

 

As for speculation, I find the story that Murray only paid �£12m for Flo as an ego boost when he was played by Ken Bates much more believable than your trophy wife explanation.

[Guest Pokeherface]

Correct me if I am wrong, please, but have Rangers not been back in the black since Advocaat left the club? ('since' as in 'between that time and now, once' rather than 'at all times since he left' before the pedants pounce )

[calscot 0]

Craig: you can call it speculation, but I'm just theorising with what I know to fit the scenario. More like postulation.

 

I'm not absolving SDM of blame, but see it more like he had an equal partner who was egging him on and pushing him into it, with his over inflated ego the Shakespearean type weakness which caused the tragedy. To me he was a bit like MacBeth to DA's Lady MacBeth.

 

I think our paradigms are different in that you see a parent - child relationship, where the parent should be the responsible, moderating factor to the fantastical demands of of the irresponsible child. I see it more like an old fashioned marriage made in hell - it all depends on how much sweet-talking the wife is capable of.

 

It might have happened with other managers but not all of them, and in my opinion only a minority would end in such disaster.

 

There are other affective factors like the proposed European Super League and a glimmer of hope for joining the EPL and even the dangling of incredibly high offers from Sky which then hit the dust. SDM wrongly believed that the heavy investment was required to secure future riches.

 

The debt also looked effectively smaller then as Rangers were then valued at something like an outrageous �£250M.

 

I agree he was a gambler and like one that had fallen in too deep but believed that one big win was just around the corner, when he came back to reality and started counting the losses he was probably shocked at where his whirlwind ride had taken him. That explains his true to character, first instinct was to deny it and hide it.

 

It eventually came out and he ponied up to rescue his reputation. He then went on a sort of detox away from the game.

 

The guy has been a mess ever since, and came back desperately trying one more time to relive the old days and made the same old mistakes - while at the same time almost losing his business empire. As a football owner he's now a broken wreck and leaving the game for good with his tail between his legs. I think the guarantee of an ongoing investment is his last hurrah at trying to vicariously salvage some popularity or integrity about his ill-fated Rangers tenure.

[calscot 0]

Correct me if I am wrong, please, but have Rangers not been back in the black since Advocaat left the club? ('since' as in 'between that time and now, once' rather than 'at all times since he left' before the pedants pounce )

 

I think we once had the debt down to about �£6M - before SDM took the reigns back and installed PLG then WS. The trouble was that when we achieved a low debt it coincided with finishing third with no trophies which was a pretty low point.