Pay the piper, the most predicted self-harming on the planet

The early years of a new business are risky.  It doesn’t matter if you have the best product or service, or the potential to rule the world, it’s critically important you don’t run out of cash.

The Rangers Football Club ran at a cash deficit from their first month’s trading.  Within six months of starting business they undertook an enormously successful share issue (going public as Rangers International PLC), raising in the region of £22m, but they continued to spend more than they earned.  On Saturday, the BBC reported a club source confirmed they were 48 hours from running out of money.

For a moment, put aside who owns Rangers International (RIPLC), sits on its board, owns its retail rights or has security over its assets.  In any normal run of business these things are important, but right now, for RIPLC, they are secondary.  The most important issue in this company is paying its creditors.

They can either pay their bills, or they can’t.  If they could pay their bills, they would have no problems with predator-shareholders and the company could accommodate the aspirations of all stakeholders – including fans.

If the company cannot pay its bills it will not meet the aspirations of any stakeholders.  It will either go out of business, or it will attract an investor who is prepared to pay creditors, and in return extract assets or some other compensation.

The pain of Dave King and his legions of cohorts in ‘restoring Rangers’ and preventing Celtic from accumulating 10, 20 or 30-in-a-row is tangible, but there was no easy fix.  Rangers International should have been urged by all of these voices to cut costs to match income, pay their bills and ensure that Newco, unlike the original Rangers FC, would never be out of pocket and vulnerable to the most aggressive carpetbagger.

Instead, all we heard about was the Restoration of Rangers, no matter the cost.  Living as modest also-rans, paying their bills while hoping to win the odd cup and avoiding an absolute hammering at Celtic Park a couple of times a season, was simply unacceptable when pitted against the alternative – burning cash like there’s no tomorrow and hoping something miraculous would turn up.  It was madness.

Mike Ashley has fed the junkie-club a couple of million, which might be enough to see it through Christmas but it’ll need another, larger, hit, before long.  Attempts by King or any other wealthy fans to intimidate the Easdales, or Ashley, to capitulate, will fail, again.

The club does not have the money to pay its creditors until season ticket renewal money arrives, but it has more assets, specifically the stadium and Murray Park, which can be sold or secured.  In return for this latest loan, Ashley got control of the boardroom.  This will allow him and his allies to dictate the terms of the next funding arrangement.

Those wondering how he will increase his shareholding in Rangers International, in conflict with his ownership of Newcastle United, are missing the point.  He doesn’t need to own Rangers International, all he needs to do is own the stadium – at an onerous rent, and own the merchandising and image rights.

Like Sir Davie Murray before him, he might even fancy owning the IT provision, travel, stadium advertising and catering (yes, I know that’s already gone) at Ibrox.  Murray’s companies used to take close to £4m a year out of Rangers – and they thanked him for the honour.

Much of the above could be outsourced to Newcastle, where all ‘customer contact’ could be administered from.  He could even subcontract the manager, coaches, scouts and the guys who puts the cones out from Newcastle.  All of which would mean that in the event of a commercial trauma, he holds all the contracts necessary to start afresh.

Ashely doesn’t need to own another ounce of Rangers International, in fact, after he has secured the stadium etc. on a long and glorious lease, he will be pretty much finished with the hollowed-out runt of a club.

Similarly, those who suggest Ashley’s loan is a sign that he will not allow the club to fail are missing the point.  If he owns or controls the stadium, IP, client databases, coaches or whatever else, he controls what happens AFTER a liquidation.

Right now Ashley, and his collaborators remaining on the board, have to pay those onerous contracts we heard so much about, while they own less than 50% of the shares.  I doubt Ashley has paid onerous terms in his life.  Liquidation would allow him and his pals to start afresh, stop paying the last bunch of spivs and keep the money for themselves.

In practically every literary portrayal of hubris, the protagonist has a moment of self-awareness.  It as though literature doesn’t work, it’s not credible, without a fleeting moment of clarity.  No one, it seems, carries the same stupid world view throughout a complete novel.

Literature has failed to prepare us for the most predicted self-harming on the planet.

Remember to order Caesar & The Assassin, signed by Billy McNeill and David Hay, more here. To confirm a note on Billy’s nickname. While it was acquired from Cesar Romero, Billy prefers “Caesar”, which was how the name was always spelled during his playing days.