Dave King flew into Glasgow today as a man without a plan.
He has put nothing down on paper saying what he intends to do.
He has expressed doubts about his own funds being up to the job.
He has admitted that he has no idea what kind of financial disaster area he is walking into.
He says the club will need “northwards of £20 million” in the “short to medium term”, without actually telling us what timeframe that covers.
In short, he is winging it, making it up as he goes along.
Sevco Rangers fans are celebrating this like it’s the Second Coming, which in a sense in it.
King has already served on a board which brought a club playing out of Ibrox to its knees.
He appears to have learned nothing from that experience, and judging by the comments he’s made today and previously, no-one else has either.
In the meantime, his supporters and sympathisers are lining up, in the media and in the governing body itself, to tell us how much the sport needs this club and how much it needs the “stability” he brings to it … without any evidence that he can deliver.
Everyone at Ibrox is marching into the darkness … and Stewart Regan and others are preparing the groundwork for Scottish football to follow them in.
Even now, the narrative is being written to allow King onto the board.
The SFA appears quite willing to bend its own rulebook to the snapping point, to let a man who pled guilty to offences which could have seen him go to prison for 80 odd years assume a position of authority within one of our football clubs.
If it happens it will be a scandal unlike any that has come before.
Other clubs don’t allow these kind of people near the building. St Mirren broke off negotiations with a potential investor recently because one of his associates had a criminal conviction.
The English FA frequently puts the blockers on those with colourful backgrounds.
Here, in Scottish football, we appear to encourage them.
In my latest piece for On Fields of Green I’ve looked at Stewart Regan’s statement today on how Sevco Rangers needs stability, and at Graham Spiers article which suggests that “Rangers have suffered enough.” You can read it at the link below.
Once again, the reputation and standing of Scottish football itself is being put on the line with the objective of saving a club from Ibrox from the consequences of its own hubris and lack of fiscal sanity. Once more we’re all being asked to pay down their debt.
They claim that King is the only man left in this saga, which is obviously fictitious.
They claim that his convictions in South Africa are not of a serious nature, which is unequivocally false.
They claim that without him the club could go under again, which is categorically untrue.
He is simply the one man the supporters will tolerate.
And for this, we are supposed to let rules and regulations be bent all to Hell?
The fans of the club playing out of Ibrox are notoriously fickle, arrogant and self-regarding. They are unbelievably selfish and impossible to please.
Had we bent their way and allowed their newco to start in the top flight – as the governing bodies wanted – our national sport would be a wasteland.
Fans would have deserted in droves. And they’d have been right to. It would have turned Scottish football into a rigged game.
As it is right now, every club in this country has suffered – and continues to suffer – the consequences of the summer of 2012, when the people in charge of the commercial departments at the SFA and the SPL talked our game into the gutter with their “Armageddon” scaremongering, wiping millions off the TV deals and leaving our top flight without a sponsor.
They thought our game would not survive Newco Rangers in the bottom tier. They were wrong.
In the interim, clubs posted profits and attracted record crowds.
Teams which hadn’t won a trophy in their history found themselves tasting glory.
Wealth was redistributed throughout the game.
Not only did our sport survive, but it would have thrived with good administrators running it.
Instead we got Regan and Doncaster. And Ogilvie.
When does this end?
When do the people responsible for running our sport for the good of every club stop running it for the benefit of just one?
Dave King enters Ibrox as a man without a plan.
How long before we’re being told the rest of us have to pick up the tab for his lack of a clue?
That’s the Rangers way, after all.
They screw up, the rest of us pay up.
Enough is enough.
To read On Fields of Green’s “A Sport Without Integrity” click here.
How do you go about removing the ones in charge of the SFA think we’ve all had/heard about enough of their crap as far as Sevco are involved, done nothing but degrade the very thing they’re supposed to be promoting.
Good articles James, isn’t it the law of the land that a failed businessman cannot hold a position in ANY registered company for 5years in Britain? The SFA cannot overrule the national courts I shouldn’t think. I’m working here in Bolivia in the mining industry, but seem to remember Mr Graham Spiers writing for the Herald a few years ago now, he always seemed objective and dare I say it sympathetic towards us, perhaps he’s changed. Keep telling it as it is James eventually they’ll hear the truth.HH
Ian, yes it is mate. Paul Murray can no more sit on the board than King can, but they seem to have forgotten the concept of laws as well as football rules.
perhaps someone can clarify something, if someone who was part of the board of a failed company then goes on to join a new company with a similar/same name and trading in the same business field, does that not mean that the new business is then liable for all debts from old business?
Good morning Joe from Oruro CFC supporters club( unofficial) 2Bolivians, 2Americans and myself. Joe if my memory serves me regarding Company law, it is the registered named company and not the individual board members that are liable, hence the reason they can stay in their houses, keep their property and the like. As the company has no money the pie man and window cleaner join the list of those who gave their time and merchandise in good faith and await payment after HMRC etcetera. Your thinking is better, perhaps corporate law should include it, this would cut down on risk taking as it is THEIR own personal wealth and not Joe public’s money at risk.HH.
Regan and Doncaster are a disgrace to the game. Have to get rid of both of them.