The Perfect Storm Engulfs Ibrox

[Bill 13,717]

When I started going to watch the Gers in the early sixties I had no thoughts about how football clubs were run and don't recall any problems as player came and went were bought and sold and things ran smoothly.

It is after the likes of John Lawrence and others of that ilk sold out I became aware of "Boards" in the club.

Things then became silly with David Murray's blinkered approach towards being better than the Mhanks and money being spent more than came back and the slippery slope continued on and on.

From then the rest is recent history.

Same era here. If someone had asked who the directors were I wouldn't have had a clue ... or cared. How its changed.

[pete 2,499]

Company history

Prior to incorporation

 

The football club was formed in 1872 and was operated by the four founders until its incorporation on 27 May 1899. At the point the Club was Incorporated, a limited company (The Rangers Football Club Ltd) was formed and the Club now had legal personality, with directors and liabilities in accordance with the Companies Act.

Minority shareholdings

 

From the company's formation in 1899, no single shareholder obtained a large enough shareholding to have a majority (and thereby be deemed the owner). From 1963, John Lawrence (Glasgow) Ltd began increasing its shareholding in the company, eventually becoming the largest shareholder with 15%. John Lawrence of John Lawrence (Glasgow) Ltd, became the club's Chairman and served for nearly ten years, retiring in 1973 due to ill health.[11] On Lawrence's death in 1977, his shareholding in the Lawrence Group, and in its business, was transferred to his grandson, Lawrence Marlborough. The following years saw a steady increase in the Lawrence Group's shareholding in the club.[11]

Lawrence Group

 

In 1985, the Lawrence Group increased its shareholding in Rangers to a 52% majority, following a deal with then club vice-chairman Jack Gillespie.[11] In November 1988, head of the Lawrence Group, Lawrence Marlborough sold the company for £6 million.[11]

Murray International Holdings

 

Between 1988 and 2011 Scottish steel magnate David Murray was the owner of Rangers, after he had purchased the company for £6 million, via his own company Murray International Holdings.[12][13][14][15]

 

During the late 1990s Murray increased the club's player transfer budget in an attempt to succeed in both domestic and European football. High-profile players such as Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup joined the club during this time.[16][17] After Dick Advocaat became manager, Murray again sanctioned some large transfer spending on players such as Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer.[18][19] During this time, Murray employed an Employee Benefit Trust scheme to pay players, and other staff at board room level, including himself. EBTs have been described as tax avoidance schemes, and allowed Rangers players and employees to pay less tax on what they were paid. David Murray denied any cheating took place with regards to this EBT scheme during his stewardship.[20] HMRC took issue with the scheme and provided Rangers with a bill of £49million, inclusive of interest and penalties. This was disputed and was ruled upon by three judges at a First Tier Tax Tribunal; the verdict was announced on 20 November 2012, with Rangers winning the appeal.[21][22] An Upper Tribunal upheld the decision in 2014,[23] but HMRC appealed to the Court of Session.[24] In November 2015, their appeal that the EBT payments made to Rangers employees were undeclared taxable earnings was upheld by all three judges.[25] In July 2017, the Court of Session's ruling was upheld by the UK Supreme Court in a final decision.[26][27][28][29]

 

Rangers Football Club became a limited company on 27 May 1899[30] when it was incorporated as The Rangers Football Club Ltd. It continued in this form until the year 2000 when Sir David Murray decided to list the company on the stock exchange, making it a public limited company. The name of the company was therefore changed to The Rangers Football Club Plc.[31]

[colinstein 294]

Same era here. If someone had asked who the directors were I wouldn't have had a clue ... or cared. How its changed.

 

same era.....certainly knew John Lawrence was the main man.....also there was a guy called Gillespie, a used car salesman with money who tried for years and eventually succeeded to get on the board

those were the stories anyway

[26th of foot 6,083]

As well as Lawrence and Gillespie, the other two Directors in that period were John Paton and Alan Morton.

[craig 5,199]

David Holmes was excellent for us too.

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

The boards from 1986-1997 ran the club well. We did NIAR and came out the other end with cash in the bank.

 

It was from 1998 onwards that the spending got silly and SDM/the board lost control of the financial situation..

When Advocaat took over we had an ageing, depleted squad and an archaic infrastructure.

[buster. 5,199]

The Board members put their money in and want a say, going to be difficult to change the mindset.

 

Of course they want and should have a say. That's what they are there to do,....but IMO it's about making the right/consistent decisions within a plan/framework/strategy rather than simply reacting with a tendency to go from the rough on one side of the fairway to a bunker, on the other.

 

If the boardroom dynamic is 'difficult' and not conducive to decisive leadership/feasibility at a time when it is desperately needed, then surely something would have to change.

 

That isn't aimed at any particular person(s),... but surely the collective need to somehow address this.

 

From the outside looking in, the core of leadership throughout the club seems to be lacking.

 

From a joined-up strategy coming from the boardroom..........to a hard-nosed & competent CEO to implement it on a daily basis...........to the communications coming from the club............to a first team operation wrt managerial appt. (Pedro) and two summer transfer windows.

 

As another poster pointed out, there are potentially positive things happening that could be regarded as part of a longterm strategy, eg. DoF, new scouting operation, recent advertisment looking for Comms & marketing director....but the current focus is on the first team and after a good start (15/16), we've been all over the place.

[Bluedell 5,627]

When Advocaat took over we had an ageing, depleted squad and an archaic infrastructure.

 

The former point does not necessarily fall to the board, with the manager deciding on who the players are. The board supplied the manager the means to get plenty of fabulous players.

 

As for the infrastructure, SDM had gone and got cash to help improve that.

 

The board up to 1997 weren't perfect and it's possible to nit pick about certain areas but the club was largely well run during that 11 year period.

[buster. 5,199]

I really enjoyed reading this article. There's much of it I agree with, but I don't agree this is the perfect storm. In fact, I don't think it's a storm at all. It's raining and there's some headwind, but that's it. What's causing the suffering is our mismanagement of the conditions.

 

Firstly, the managerial situation is something that has been handled poorly. MW was appointed to get us out of the championship, which he did. We then appoint PC to advance the club and give us an identity. The way in which the board/CEO has managed this is amateurish, and these so-called businessmen should be ashamed. Why sack him when they did? I appreciate many fans didn't want him in the first place, but he was put in place and the board had committed to giving him sufficient time to make progress. To be perceived as backing a player (Miller) ahead of the manager is utterly bizarre and destructive. Any leader should know that, even those in small businesses such as our football club. Even if they decided PC had to go, they should have managed the perception better. To then hand the reigns over to Murty and to allow him to bring Miller back in immediately was always going to be a disaster. It was only a matter of how long it would take. So much for the Ibrox discipline that's been at the core of our success. I was disgusted and embarrassed by this, and I hope the board is too.

 

The second element of this so-called storm is the 'management' of the media. We know the environment we operate in, and yet we don't seem to do much about it. The club has to create an operating rhythm for the 21st century. That means it needs to continue to feed the fans with as much information as it can, even if it means repeating statements to confirm that nothing has changed. Instead, we leave ourselves open to the rumour mill and scaremongerers, who quite frankly have a field day with us. Do we have a media strategy? Again, I appreciate football clubs aren't big businesses, but the media (especially social media) is such an important aspect of the environment that I'd expect we'd spend a proportionate amount of time on this. Who is taking the lead on this? I don't see anyone. When I hear DK speak to the media, I take comfort from him being a fan who just wants the best for his club. I get no comfort from anyone else, somwhere are the executive members of the board? Why are they silent? Why are the not standing up to the critics? I don't expect them to criticise others, or to ban them, but I do expect someone to take responsibility for holding them to account for their false claims and made up stories.

 

What our club lacks is a leader. If DK was on the executive team, he has the attributes to take that role. He has however made it clear that he's not interested in moving back and that's understandable. But in his absence, we need someone but I can't see who that might be.

 

Our history is filled with leaders on and off the pitch. One of the reasons I liked PC was that he had strong leadership characteristics. He had many flaws too, but for a while we had someone who was strong, committed and disciplined. Strong teams (not just in football) have strong leaders. Our boardroom team does not appear to have any leaders (other than DK who can't commit the time to it), and our on the field team lacks those qualities too. So, to manage this bit of bad weather, all we need is at least one strong leader. The success will then follow follow.

 

You are right, the title isn't quite right for the content, ie. lesson is not to choose title before scribbling the content.

 

The boardroom dynamic in relation to decisions surrounding the hiring and firing of first team managers has been more than questionable. Alastair Johnson made strong comments on this (apparently aimed at Pedro Caixinha appointment).

 

For a football club these are the big decisions (including relative financal impact, eg. transfer fees/salaries) and despite a recognition of this regarding the player recruitment of MW.......what followed was to play the same high-risk game with more money and at longer odds, then a period of chasing your losses before the inevitable firing of PC.

 

-------------

 

The mainstream media side of things is more complicated because we have made 'enemies' out of so much of it when it would have always been better to be more selective in this regard and box clever where possible. What 'box clever' actually means should be a question for an experienced PR professional, rather than an ex-journalist taking his first stab at it.

 

Some of the time this has been reactionary/apparently vindictive to appease fan outcry and Traynors whims. It tends to give you a day or two of positivity and then becomes more problematic.

 

Unless you have something constructive to say then you are better saying nothing. DK is a case in point and everytime he goes in front of them, he only seems to extend the rod he has made for his own back.....and all the positives he may have mentioned will be forgotten as the negative is jumped upon.

 

I don't have the answers but it's definately an area that needs work on and may actually be being addressed (recent advert for Comms & marketing diretor).

 

You finish by mentioning leadership. Just as a football team is often built upon a spine, we need it within an effective structure throughout the club.

 

Effective Boardroom dynamic (Strategy)

Implementation (CEO)

Football Operation (DoF)

First Team manager (Pick a good one)

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

The former point does not necessarily fall to the board, with the manager deciding on who the players are. The board supplied the manager the means to get plenty of fabulous players.

 

As for the infrastructure, SDM had gone and got cash to help improve that.

 

The board up to 1997 weren't perfect and it's possible to nit pick about certain areas but the club was largely well run during that 11 year period.

The board are accountable for everything at the club. They decide on the management, coaches and ultimately the direction the club is heading both on and off the park. I remember when Advocaat took over and he basically had to buy a completely new squad, had no youth coming through and no scouting network to speak of. That doesn't point to me as a club run very well.