Frankie 8,843 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 DESPITE claims he could earn the club up to £22m buy selling shares to Rangers fans, Charles Green may have to amend his target as many supporters struggle - or refuse - to stump up the cash. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/charles-green-on-the-backfoot-for-first-time-1493627 THEREâ??S a touch of the Boycotts about Charles Green. And it has nothing to do with not taking tickets for Tannadice. For six months this eccentric, torn-faced Yorkshireman has been strutting around Scottish football, smashing almost everything and everyone for six. His aggressive, sleeves-rolled-up batting style has been fun to watch and, at times, pretty spectacular too. Somehow, and in almost no time at all, Green has won over the hearts and minds of a support which at first could not have been more suspicious of him had he pitched up at Ibrox wearing Craig Whyteâ??s old pointy shoes. His straight-talking charm offensive has been a thing of beauty and those same fans now have no problem at all with the fact that, by tomorrow, Green will have earned himself a small fortune from their club. Maybe even as much as £3.5million. Thatâ??s his reward for riding to their rescue. Also, it must be said, when it was announced only 10 or so days ago that he had secured £17m worth of reasonably blue chip institutional investment in his planned flotation, many a flat cap was doffed in Greenâ??s direction. This was arguably an even more impressive success than his snake charming act on the masses. But â?? and you knew there was a â??butâ? coming â?? at some point in the next 24 hours Green may be forced on to the back foot for the first time. A lot less bullish than before. Maybe even a little sheepish, depending on the extent of the damage. Those same supporters now eating out of the palm of his hand have only until 1pm tomorrow to make good on their promises to buy shares in Greenâ??s Rangers. To put their money where their mouths were a few months ago when around £22m was pledged in the online land of lah-de-dah. If ever there was proof of the dangers of taking the internetâ??s word for it, then this is surely it. Because, as things stood over the weekend, the total stumped up by these supporters was closer to £2m than £22m. Maybe not even that much. A total of £10m worth of shares was ring-fenced by Green for fans. But the word from those who know inside Ibrox yesterday was that the uptake has been slow. The exact numbers are blurry, not least because sales have picked up slightly over the last 72 hours but, even so, the best Green can hope for now is to shift half of the £10m he set aside. In fact, the truth is Rangers will be delighted to break through the £4m barrier in the final few hours of trading. So, unless there is a late stampede to hand over bundles of £500s â?? a week before Christmas â?? Green will be left with quite a significant hole in his plans. And someone, somewhere will have badly miscalculated. Itâ??s too easy to blame the fans for failing to follow through with their cash pledges, which came in the form of registered interest. The suspicion is many pledges may have been made by cunning rival fans as a wind-up. You know the kind of thing. â??Yes, the nameâ??s Lennon.â? â??First name?â? â??Eh, Niall. And Iâ??m good for 20 grand ma man.â? â??Yaldi!â? Others may well have been genuine and full of good intentions at the time but baulked when it came to coughing up the cash. Or when it was time to tell the missus to buy a smaller turkey this year. Or a pack of chicken dippers. Yes, with hindsight, Green may well be wishing now that he had not chosen to launch this issue in December, in the middle of a recession. He may also be thinking he was asking for too much when he set the minimum asking price at a monkey. Now Iâ??m no Lord Sugar but wasnâ??t that all rather bleeding obvious? These same supporters, remember, have already been paying hand over fist to keep their club alive since all its troubles began to crystallise at the start of a year that will go down in history as Rangersâ?? annus horribilis. Thatâ??s Latin for Craig Whyte. Also, Green may have blundered on TV last week by apparently stressing there was very little need for the clubâ??s fans to dig deep. He said unsold shares would be quickly gobbled up by his institutional investors, who wanted to plough around £25m into the club but were scaled back to £17m to satisfy demand from fans. â??If thereâ??s any left over Iâ??ll even buy â??em myself,â? was how Green put it. But this may have backfired on him because, if anything, it allowed fans to feel as if their larger-than-life chief executive had it all covered. When 10,000 Celtic supporters raised £9m between them in 1995, they were doing it to save their club. That was the message from Fergus McCann and the response was quite staggering. If Rangers supporters fall way short of that kind of sum, they can expect to be told about it by their neighbours. Over and over. And no, Green wonâ??t be there with his cheque book to make up the difference. Heâ??s not here to spend his own money. He prefer others to spend for him. So now, barring a late and intense flurry of investment from supporters today and tomorrow, heâ??s going to be left with a whole load of unwanted shares on his office desk and a sizeable chunk missing from his budget. He had better hope his assembled squad of big-money backers in London are indeed prepared to pick up the slack to the tune of up to £7m or suddenly, what had been shaping up as a major success story could become a minor source of embarrassment. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,843 Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 I must admit, if the fans do manage to raise anywhere near £3million that's more than I expected when the period of the issue was announced. Will be interesting to see if, as suggested by Green on STV last week, if he and his other institutional investors make up the shortfall to raise the full £27million. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazza_8 233 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Wrong time to launch this. If he could've waited until February or March then I'm sure the uptake would've been better. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
aweebluesoandso 290 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Sounds like Jackson is writing his Christmas wish list to Santa in that article. I hope Jimbo Traynor is working behind the scenes (he would be foolish not too at this crucial stage) and has set the Rhetard and Jackson up for a fall. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,843 Posted December 17, 2012 Author Share Posted December 17, 2012 Sounds like Jackson is writing his Christmas wish list to Santa in that article. I hope Jimbo Traynor is working behind the scenes (he would be foolish not too at this crucial stage) and has set the Rhetard and Jackson up for a fall. More like RFC have leaked the story to the Record to catalyse interest in the offer. I don't think JT starts until next year in any case. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComeOffit 0 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Only an idiot would have the deadline to buy a week before christmas, and Green might be a lot of things, but an idiot isn't one of them. Which begs the question of why the rush? Do we have cash flow problems, in light of having no borrowing facilities? Does he not want fans to have too many shares/voting rights? Even delaying it for a few more weeks would have seen a much bigger uptake, but i'm sure he has his reasons. I just doubt his reasons are for our benefit. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
the gunslinger 3,366 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Fergus really engaged the celtc support. you could go along and talk to him about it. you could pay it up and as stated he stressed the money was to save the club and was clear about his plans for getting them back on top. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
aweebluesoandso 290 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 More like RFC have leaked the story to the Record to catalyse interest in the offer. I don't think JT starts until next year in any case. Officially yes, in a unofficial capacity Rangers would be mad not to use his experience at this time? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComeOffit 0 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 Fergus really engaged the celtc support. you could go along and talk to him about it. you could pay it up and as stated he stressed the money was to save the club and was clear about his plans for getting them back on top. Their situation wasn't the same to be fair. I dont think they were starting from the same clean slate as we are. They needed the dough to stop them going tits up, we dont have that problem. I'm assuming, because I dont know too much about what happened to them. I dont think the 2 situations stand much comparison. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darthter 542 Posted December 17, 2012 Share Posted December 17, 2012 More like RFC have leaked the story to the Record to catalyse interest in the offer. I don't think JT starts until next year in any case. ANYTHING that gets the share issue into the papers at the moment is probably a good thing..... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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