TAKING over from a manager who has been sacked after a poor run of results is always easier than replacing someone who has been lured away as a consequence of the success he has been responsible for. Expectations among supporters are low. Whatever improvement the new man can deliver is invariably welcomed.
Exactly the same rule replies to club directors. The current Rangers hierarchy may have some difficult questions to answer about both their on and off-field performance at their annual general meeting in the Clyde Auditorium on Thursday morning. But it is unlikely they will receive too much of a rough ride from their shareholders given the heinous incompetence and questionable motives of the successive regimes which preceded them.
Craig Whyte, Charles Green, Imran Ahmad, Brian Stockbridge, Craig Mather, David Somers, James and Sandy Easdale, David Somers, Derek Lambias and Barry Leach have all occupied senior positions, if not, in all cases, positions on the board, at the Glasgow club in recent years. The mere mention of their names is, even now, enough to send a shiver down the spines of their long-suffering followers.
The ludicrous appointment of Pedro Caixinha as manager, the lavish and ill-advised recruitment drive the Portuguese coach was allowed to embark on in the summer, the failure to appoint a full-time replacement for him, the £6.7 million loss which was posted in the last financial year, the refusal by chairman Dave King to comply with the Takeover Panel ruling and the implications of that are all certain to be raised at the AGM.
Yet, those in attendance will still appreciate the benefits of being run by bona fide fans whose collective objective is the long-term stability of the Ibrox club and the acquisition of silverware rather than their personal gain or that of their paymasters.
The passing of Resolution 11 on Thursday will be hugely significant for Rangers going forward. It will allow the board to issue new shares without first offering them to existing investors. That will enable them to convert a portion of £12.9 million loans which are currently owed to their benefactors John Bennett, King, George Letham, Scott Murdoch, Paul Murray, Andrew Ross, George Taylor and Barry Scott into equity.
The resolution was defeated by just 0.4 per cent 12 months ago. But since then the amalgamated supporters group Club 1872 have increased their stake to 10.71 per cent after buying half of the 8.9 per cent shareholding which Mike Ashley owned for £1 million in June. It should go through on this occasion.
With Rangers also renegotiating the terms of their prohibitive retail deal with Sports Direct at a cost of £3 million after months if not years of complex wrangling there are grounds for cautious optimism.
Still, supporters deserve far greater clarity, particularly over what is happening with a new manager, than is currently the case. It will be incumbent on the top table to provide them with some much-needed answers. Barry Ferguson, the former club captain, summed up the feelings of many this week when he expressed his frustration at the lack of information coming out of Ibrox. “Somebody has to let the fans know what’s going on,” he told PLZ Soccer. “That’s not the Rangers I know. They lack class.”
It is only right that, after the tenures of Ally McCoist, Stuart McCall, Mark Warburton and Caixinha all ended in disappointment and failure, Rangers take their time to do their due diligence and identify exactly the right man to take over. A quick fix would be disastrous. Rushing to bring someone in and making the wrong decision can be, as has been shown in recent weeks, costly.
But it has been over a month now since Caixinha’s services were dispensed with and Rangers appear no nearer to making an announcement about his successor. It is an inordinate amount of time to take to bring someone in. It is little wonder there has been inevitable speculation over whether the club have the funds to pay compensation. Is that the stumbling block?
These Rangers directors are a vast improvement on those who came before them, but they must still be open and accountable to those who sit in the stands at Ibrox on match day.
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