Traynor and King sitting in a tree
I hear legendary Sevconian statement issuer, Jim “Rangers are dead” Traynor, is now firmly established in the Dave King camp. You may have found recent statements familiar, including last night’s, which focusses more on interrupting Celtic’s period of domination than building a well-run and sustainable football club.
Or it could be that Dave King is in Traynor’s camp, it’s hard to tell who is the monkey and who is the organ grinder when it comes to that lot and their long and dysfunctional relationships with PR masters.
My suspicions were raised when the Sunday Mail ran a complete non-story on their front page. Someone submitted a frivolous complaint to police – this is your news, Scotland. This was the kind of article which would be found in the same publication when Fergus McCann was in charge at Celtic; an unadulterated attack on the club. Now poor (not actually poor) Graham Wallace has to deal with them.
What price ‘loyalty’ after Traynor had his snout in the trough to a spectacular level too. We actually have a recipient of some of that enormous over-spend criticising the enormous over-spend. After his money was banked, of course. For the life of me I can never understand why the other lot put up with these types.
King’s eight point statement was an absolute hoot and completely inspired by Celtic’s position. There seems to be a pattern here: do wrong, then criticise others for doing as you did.
Point One:
King first addressed the liability for blame, and possible criminal investigations, which he believed should be heading towards the Rangers International board in the wake of comments made by chief executive, Graham Waddell, five months ago. He wrote:
….“It is beyond doubt that the CEO (and other board members) was aware last December that there was insufficient cash to last until the end of the season and the board failed to respond to my previous question in that regard. The CEO is now subject to a criminal complaint on this very issue but I believe that his comments were made with the full knowledge of the board. Certainly no one came out to contradict him. We should therefore expect any criminal investigation to extend to other board members.”
Dave King was a director of now-liquidated Rangers throughout the entire Craig Whyte era, when the club borrowed money from Ticketus to fund the payment of Lloyds debt, failed to pay social taxes and came crashing down. Whyte lied about the Ticketus deal but his non-execs kept their eyes, ears and mouths shut.
King was also a director of Rangers for over a decade, including the period of the David Murray-Campbell Ogilvie EBT shambles, which was proven to be illegal on five counts, the other counts are currently subject to an Upper Tier Tribunal.
Point 2:
“If cash was wasted as a result of mismanagement (presumably Charles Green etc.) then what steps are being taken to hold management accountable for this?”
As a non-executive director of failed Rangers FC PLC King was employed to ensure interests of stakeholders were being looked after. He failed singularly in this regard and has yet to be held to account.
Point Three:
“The board has conceded that it does not plan to effectively compete with Celtic in our first season back in the Premier League.”
This is sanity, not vanity. To suggest Newco throw so much money at the team that the instantly become competitive to Celtic is a sure-fire way of guaranteeing yet another insolvency event. These. People. Never. Learn.
Point Four:
“This is a great review for Celtic fans. It is stated that the board might only raise 20 million over the next 3 years. This paltry amount will guarantee that Celtic will be in a league of its own for the next few years- and possibly permanently thereafter. Celtic will continue to enjoy exclusive access to the Champions League windfalls and will go from financial strength to strength. The gap could become financially irreversible.”
Agree that Celtic will go from strength to strength and be remain a league of their own. Disagree that the review was great for Celtic fans. The review is little more than a laugh for Celtic fans, it changes nothing for us. I like the “permanently thereafter” line, though. It carries a bit more weight than “Generation of Domination”, which sounded ridiculous to some 9 years ago when it was first mooted but now sounds a tad understated.
Point Five:
“The board still does not have a clear plan for raising capital despite knowing for some months that a financial crisis was looming.”
Correct. On a related matter, Mr King has offered unspecified notions that he would encourage other people to buy tens of millions of pounds of shares, no clear plan has been identified, exactly what he accused Newco’s board of.
Point Six:
“It is interesting that the credit card companies agree with me that the season tickets should not be released to the club. However, it is genuinely shocking that this board has, for several months, withheld the knowledge that fans would not have access to credit card facilities when renewing season ticket purchases. The board preferred to blame “external parties” in an attempt to hide this serious non-disclosure. How can this board ask fans to ever trust them again?”
I think Mr King may have composed this comment ‘after a long lunch’. Credit card companies have not suggested season tickets should not be released to (sic.) the club, they simply don’t want anything to do with these transactions.
It is not shocking at all that the decision by credit card companies was not shared by fans for a number of months. Wallace would have spent much of this time looking for an alternative. It would have been inappropriate for a PLC to disclose sensitive financial negotiations to the general public months before that information becomes relevant.
Point Seven:
“The board continues the blame game and takes no responsibility for the current debacle. In truth, it is this board’s stubborn refusal to secure fresh equity that is the cause of the present fragile state of the club’s finances. The board clearly hoped to muddle along by using the season ticket advances from fans. This review should reinforce to fans that this board cannot serve as an appropriate custodian for their season ticket money.”
If fans want to know who to blame for the death of Rangers and the undignified mess Newco are in, they need look no further than the boards headed by Sir David Murray and Craig Whyte, both of which Dave King served on. Blaming Wallace instead is nonsense.
Point Eight:
“The board has admitted that Rangers is not presently a “going concern” and yet offers no plan on how this will be dealt with in the short term. Fans could once again lose their season ticket advances if given to the club at this time. It is unconscionable that this board has done nothing to bolster the finances since the last AGM.”
Fans of Oldco or Newco have never lost their season ticket advances. What is he thinking of? Does he know what club he’s talking about?
Get your signed copy of Yogi Bare here: