The Danger of irresponsible blogging

[D'Artagnan 173]

The consequence...

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/scottish-football/10499198/Financial-gulf-grows-between-Old-Firm-rivals-Celtic-and-Rangers-with-clubs-share-prices-facing-contrasting-fortunes.html

 

The truth

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2250854/Charles-Green-pledges-Ally-McCoist-10m-spend-Rangers-flotation-LSE.html

 

The source

 

http://davidleggat-leggoland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/what-happened-to-25m-war-chest.html

[Frankie 8,831]

It's early in the morning but I'm confused mate.

 

Not sure of the point you're trying to make here?

[amms 0]

Not only am I confused but I also had to click on a link to the Daily Mail, I'll feel soiled for the rest of the day now.

[calscot 0]

I take it it's about the size of the warchest which Leggo inflated from 10m to 25m which is now the number used in the Scotsman propaganda piece.

[der Berliner 4,035]

For those unwilling to click the links ...

 

Not exactly sure what D'A is pointing at, but it is somewhat sneaky a thing by Grahame to present share stuff from a Fourth and now Third tier Scottish team with one that has just had a couple of runs in Europe's elite football show, one rather money-spinning. He might have pointed out at their Co-op deals though ...

 

Telegraph (link see above)

Financial gulf grows between Old Firm rivals Celtic and Rangers with clubs’ share prices facing contrasting fortunes

Celtic owner Dermot Desmond could now sell his stake in the club at a profit while Rangers shares are down almost 50 per cent in a year.

 

By Ewing Grahame 11:59PM GMT 05 Dec 2013

 

The economic gulf between Celtic and Rangers widened on Thursday with the clubs’ share prices facing contrasting fortunes.

 

It was a particularly satisfying day for Dermot Desmond, the Irish billionaire businessman who became the majority shareholder at Parkhead when he bought out Fergus McCann, who had helped rescue the club from the brink of bankruptcy five years earlier, in 1999.

 

Thursday was one to savour for Desmond because it was the first time in those 14 years that the increase in the value of his interest in Celtic would allow him to realise a profit. Not that Desmond is of a mind to sell but, were he to offload his shareholding this morning, he would find himself £2  million better off.

 

As a consequence of that boost, Celtic’s market value climbed to £95.7  million, an estimation which sees them regarded by the markets as worth nearly four times as much as Rangers.

 

However, while Celtic’s share price rose to 76.5p on the AIM London Stock Exchange, Rangers’ price sank to a new low of 39.5p.

 

Daily Mail (link see above)

Green pledges to give McCoist a £10m war chest from Rangers' flotation on LSE

 

By Brian Marjoribanks PUBLISHED: 23:59 GMT, 19 December 2012

 

Charles Green pledged £10million from the club’s share issue for Ally McCoist to spend on new recruits — with the promise of more to follow.

 

The Rangers manager cannot add to his squad in the coming transfer window due to a one-year embargo but can bring in free agents as of September 1 next year.

 

McCoist this week sought clarity from Green over transfer budgets after the chief executive failed to deliver the five players he had been hoping for before the August deadline.

 

And Green responded by insisting that £10m will be ring-fenced from the £22.2m raised ahead of the club being floated on the London Stock Exchange, with unspecified further funds on the horizon if season-ticket sales are again healthy.

 

Green said: ‘We’ve allocated £10m for Ally to spend on players as soon as he’s able to do that. But we’re not saying it’s £10m and only £10m — if Rangers fans buy season tickets next year, there’s another £20m there.

 

‘We have a transfer ban for another year but Ally and his team are looking at who is out of contract when we can sign pre-contract agreements in January then, on September 1, we can sign them.’

 

If Rangers do sign players on pre-contracts next month, no money can change hands until the end of the transfer ban in September, but Green still expects top players to jump at the chance.

 

‘Why wouldn’t you sit on your hands and wait if you had the chance to play for Rangers?’ he asked.

 

‘In Europe, clubs are in meltdown and can’t pay players’ wages.

 

‘We know that (former Rangers keeper) Allan McGregor was having difficulty getting paid (at Besiktas), although I understand that has now been resolved.

 

‘But other players have gone into Europe on a gravy train and soon found out there’s no gravy.

 

‘So there’s a chance for them to sit on their hands or to leave their contracts and sign a contract for Rangers — who can pay salaries when we are allowed to do so. That is quite attractive.’

 

Ahead of the stock exchange flotation yesterday, Green had vowed that Rangers ‘will rise again’.

 

And the chief executive, who cannot cash in his shares for two years, believes success on and off the park over that period will result in Rangers amassing financial muscle that will ‘scare’ opponents.

 

‘We’ve sold 37,500 season tickets this season and we didn’t put them on sale until August.

 

‘Remember, no one was going to buy a ticket off me in July, because I was “a snake-oil salesman”.

 

‘With added goodwill, I’d assume if we’ve won the Third Division we’ll see no less season tickets next year.

 

‘We reduced the price to £315 this year but, if they went to £400 next year, then that’s another £18m in the bank.

 

‘That must be the scary thing about Rangers, looking from the outside.

 

‘In the past we might have needed £100m to get a squad together, but those days are long gone.

 

‘Last year, Theo Walcott would have cost up to £50m but now he may end up leaving Arsenal on a free.

 

‘That’s happening everywhere and we have to be aware of the options available to our Theo Walcotts, like Barrie McKay and Fraser Aird.

 

‘Football is changing. We don’t need to be paying £12m for Tore Andre Flo. When was that ever good business?

 

‘What we have done is set a structure in place where Rangers are no longer a boom-or-bust club. This is the springboard for the rebirth of Rangers.’

 

Rangers shares sold for 70p and were worth 76p by close of trade, with Green hailing a successful flotation.

 

‘It’s an enviable position,’ he said, ‘and if Rangers was in any other league in the world, this club would be worth £400m, bigger than Aston Villa, Tottenham, Everton and others.’

 

Leggat shall get his clicks.

[Calgacus 8]

It was the Telegraph....not the Scotsman,which shows how easy it is for errors to creep in.

[26th of foot 6,179]

I suspect Majoriebank's piece in the Daily Mail is quoting a war chest of £10million; certainly, that's the figure I remember His Chuckness stating.

 

Leggo(surely that should be Blotto) has inflated it to £25million and Ewing Grahame has seized upon it to pen another 'ah pyoor luv ra Sellik' piece. Imagine Ewing not mentioning his beloved Sellik's £30million soft loan with the CIS bank.

 

Maybe Blotto and Ewing are meeting regularly at a self-help group?

[Calgacus 8]

the Daily Mail article suggests £30 million would be available - the promised £10million + a further £20million if fans by season tickets (and we did!)

[Frankie 8,831]

I'd suggest that as much as people like Leggo should be mroe careful in their claims, Ewing Grahame won't need much encourage to spin stories in a certain fashion.

 

And, I'd also say that the person(s) ultimately to blame for the decreasing share price (which is the real story here) isn't blogger X, Y or Z but the poor performance of the club's boardroom.

[der Berliner 4,035]

Could such a low shareprice make the current "invisible" major minority shareholders willing to sell up to e.g. King?