Keith Jackson: Another Rangers war doesn't make sense..

[ian1964 10,724]

...the Ibrox throne is big enough for Mike Ashley and Dave King.

 

AS King and Ashley continue to vie for control at Rangers, KEITH insists it may be in both men's interests to discover a common ground that incorporates the interests of the club and its fans.

 

THEIR tanks have rumbled into Edmiston Drive, ready for the climactic Rangers shootout.

 

But before Mike Ashley and Dave King begin blowing each other to bits outside the Big Hoose, perhaps it might make more sense for them to find a better way.

 

Maybe, before the guns start blazing, there is a chance for them to discover common ground.

 

Of course, that would require a bit of common sense and where this club is concerned there is seldom any place for sound logic.

 

But let’s indulge ourselves for a moment in any case and pretend that the two men, who seem so willing to go to war over Rangers, may still be capable of some eleventh-hour reason.

 

Ask yourself this. If you were Ashley why on earth wouldn’t you want King to take control?

 

Those closest to the Sports Direct boss – and even those Newcastle fans who can’t stand the sight of him – all agree that his primary focus is on protecting and expanding his bargain-basement retail business. Which makes perfect sense.

 

Okay, so Slazenger polo shirts and laceless Lonsdale trainers might not be everyone’s giant novelty mug of tea but Ashley’s firm has always been more Buroo-lander than Zoolander. It’s a high street jumble sale and it’s made the man a fortune.

 

This real-life Derek Trotter is a genuine billionaire. Not like the last one who, for all anyone knows – including Glasgow’s finest for that matter – may be currently strolling around some town centre in Panama dressed in Lee Cooper and Le Coq Sportif. He always did have a bulging eye for a bargain.

 

But be that as it may, Ashley deserves to be taken a great deal more seriously. Which is precisely why now might be the ideal time for King to sit him down for a chat, assuming of course that he really is serious about handing over so much of his children’s inheritance.

 

King has not always convinced and not just because of the 41 criminal convictions for stiffing the tax man which have stained his name in South Africa.

 

His PR has been poorly thought out and his strategy over the last 12 months impossible to fathom as he has tip-toed around the edges of this farrago without ever looking prepared to get his feet wet or his hands dirty.

 

But finally he has waded back in, promising an initial £16million bailout and more millions to follow. For that reason alone he deserves to be taken seriously, even by those who continue to doubt him.

 

If Ashley counts himself among those cynics, what would be the harm in asking to see the colour of his money?

 

Because if it really is the case Ashley is interested only in what is best for his own business, there is no reason for this pair to remain hostile over the running of Rangers.

 

Yes, in an ideal world, King may wish to walk into Ibrox on day one and rip up the retail contract Ashley is apparently so determined to protect. This seven-year kit deal, of course, was gifted to him by Charles Green and has been described by those who have seen it as a ludicrously generous and one-sided agreement.

 

Green later wasted a small fortune of Rangers money on legal fees in a failed attempt to have it annulled but the consensus is that this contract is watertight.

 

In other words, Rangers have already sold the jerseys to Ashley and there is nothing King or anyone else can do about it, even if it means the loss of millions of pounds.

 

And this is where logic ought to kick in because if Ashley wants to keep coining it in from shirts and merchandise then surely King’s arrival as a potential saviour stands to make him even richer?

 

King, after all, is perhaps the one man capable not only of uniting a fractured Rangers support but also prepared to throw good money after bad in the reconstruction of a club which continues to hang by the thinnest of threads.

 

If indeed there is enough cash left in the bank to cover this month’s payday then November’s could be a killer.

 

But only in this omnishambles could a business that is wheezing and gasping for breath continue to keep a £30m life-saving injection so stubbornly at arm’s length.

 

King wants to save them. But he can’t get his money bags across the front step. And, yes, logic dictates that Ashley must see the sheer lunacy in this.

 

Over the past few months around 15,000 Rangers fans have gone missing from Ibrox. The numbers are so large that they have blown a hole in Graham Wallace’s attempts to keep the business afloat.

 

And there is a danger many more thousands will follow if Ashley guns King down in the battle for control, while also boycotting his stores.

 

However, if King was to walk back in, flanked by fellow lifelong supporters such as Paul Murray and George Letham, then it is almost certain business will begin to boom again at the turnstiles and in the club stores which Ashley also now has firmly in his grasp.

 

King plans to plough £8m into the coffers with Murray, Letham and a group of wealthy fans cobbling enough together to match him pound for pound.

 

Straight off the bat, that’s £16m that Ashley doesn’t need to bother looking for down the back of his office sofa. There will be more to come as King intends to invest his whole £30m in returning his club to a fit and competitive state and to restore a stadium which, much like the team, is in a state of decay.

 

This is King’s manifesto and so long as he can convince Ashley he is for real and that the money is there and good to go, then both Rangers and Sports Direct stand to benefit from it hugely.

 

So tell me, what possible logic is there in Ashley blowing this man away? The answer is, there isn’t any. Or at least, none that is obvious from the outside of this wretched mess.

 

Which means there must be something hidden from view, perhaps even something deeply suspicious behind the naked act of aggression earlier this week which saw Ashley set his sights on Wallace and Philip Nash, the men trying to facilitate King and his consortium.

 

What else is there to hide here? Surely nothing that stretches back to when Ashley climbed into bed with Green in the first instance and began this merciless pumping of Ibrox? Come to think of it, who on earth did bring these two together?

 

He already owns the strips and the shops which sell them. He bought the stadium’s naming rights for a quid. And had Wallace not grown a pair last month then he would have owned the club’s badges by now as well.

 

But it’s hard to see the value in any of it if Ashley’s power grab does indeed drive more and more of the customer base away. In fact, it will cost him millions of pounds in emergency loans just to continue to light up an increasingly empty stadium.

 

If he’s not careful he could end up sitting alone in the directors’ box with only his drinking buddies, Sandy and James Easdale for company and if that thought doesn’t terrify him then it should.

 

This club is broken and it needs fixed, not by a bunch of Trotters Independent Traders but by those who genuinely care for it.

 

If Ashley cannot, or will not, see the logic in that then it will indeed be time to clamber back into the tanks.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/keith-jackson-another-rangers-war-4411056

[sannybear 0]

As far as there being something suspiciously hidden from view , logic (follow the money) would suggest that ticketus/octopus are in cahoots with ashley .

[chilledbear 16]

I cannot see King investing money where someone else is going to pocket any income earned from strips, shops etc.

[der Berliner 3,744]

I cannot see King investing money where someone else is going to pocket any income earned from strips, shops etc.

 

True enough, but what can he do. He does not want to invest in anything but the club/squad et al anyway and where one income stream dries up, something else will sure arise. You would assume that both chaps are tall enough to - once a decision has been reached - speak with one another and strike a deal that will suit both. Obviously, all depends on the various deals in place (and whether they are challengable), with Ashley holding an "ace" with regards to the naming rights stuff. But especially with the latter, one would have to see how that rather strange thing can be dealt with. We ... are left to the waiting game again, our main leverage being a boycott of the stores et al.

[Super Cooper 0]

I cannot see King investing money where someone else is going to pocket any income earned from strips, shops etc.

 

And rightly so, neither would I.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

I disagree with KJ on this, a war is exactly what's needed imo,. We need a total annihilation of the Wigs and ****ery. Clear out all the dead wood restaff with people only interested in Rangers first and not their corporate brand, image, or bank balances.

[Tumshie RFC 0]

Jackson states another Rangers war doesn't make sense. There has been no common sense at Ibrox ever since Lloyds and SDM sold us to Whyte.

[pmu 0]

I think it is time for All out war, don't go to any games, don't buy the merchandise etc to force them out. However we have to accept that there might not be much left if they adopt a scorched earth policy as they extract themselves from us. I am so sick of all the boardroom and on field shit that I would be willing to risk it..

[RANGERRAB 3,668]

I think it is time for All out war, don't go to any games, don't buy the merchandise etc to force them out. However we have to accept that there might not be much left if they adopt a scorched earth policy as they extract themselves from us. I am so sick of all the boardroom and on field shit that I would be willing to risk it..

 

Whats needed is for someone to take overall control. After the first IPO all that resulted was a whole group of some known and some unknown major shareholders each with mostly between 5 and 10 percent shareholdings which resulted in a ownership structure which doesnt work.

[Hildy 0]

Whats needed is for someone to take overall control. After the first IPO all that resulted was a whole group of some known and some unknown major shareholders each with mostly between 5 and 10 percent shareholdings which resulted in a ownership structure which doesnt work.

What if the wrong sort gets overall control?

 

What then?