Ashley To Unleash The Dogs Of War

Mike Ashley is tonight considering his legal options in the face of Sevco’s reply to his request for an EGM.

In their arrogant response they have threatened him with a number of consequences, none of which really stand up to scrutiny but will have infuriated the Newcastle supremo, who’s financial reach is such that he could squeeze King’s neck like a pencil until he heard the snap.

The Ibrox board has threatened to disclose the details of the Sports Direct contractual agreements with the club, although doing so is legally dicey because of corporate confidentiality rules.

In a move that I’m sure is purely coincidental, some of those details leaked in the press this morning, detailing an astonishing seven year rolling deal, worth some £28 million over the duration, if you accept the £4 million per annum figure said to be winging its way south every year.

Add to this the £5 million in loans he’s already given to the club, and you get a clear picture of exactly what it will cost King to end the Londoner’s hold on the Sevco finances.

Another of King’s proposed resolutions is to ask the permission of the shareholders to renegotiate these deals.

He may have perhaps missed this, but as chairman of the football club he’s fully entitled to open those discussions on his own, without asking for their approval.

Indeed, if he has such respect for them in the first place it seems wholly curious that on Ashley’s principle motion – that the £5 million should be repaid at once – King is willing to ignore those same people if they vote in favour of cutting Ashley and Sports Direct loose.

You’d almost think he was worried about raising the money, eah?

This, of course, is another big hint that some people inside Ibrox think Ashley’s deals aren’t on the level.

Indeed, Keith Jackson, in a piece of breath-taking recklessness, has apparently been saying this publicly, clearly not realising that even suggesting this in the manner he has is potentially libellous.

This will do nothing to ease tensions between the two camps, as unlike some people connected with the club, every penny of the Sports Direct supremo’s fortune has been made legitimately, including paying tax.

Oh yes, Ashley is no-one’s idea of a nice bloke and his practices take advantage of every lax regulation from zero hours contracts to advertising standards laws you could drive a train through, but none of that is against the law.

Yet this isn’t even the worst part of the King board’s response.

The part that will definitely have Ashley and his people consulting the high-priced lawyers is the assertion that King’s people will change the company’s Articles of Association to prevent him from voting, based on SFA rules on dual ownership.

Ashley has already hinted that he’s prepared to take the governing body to court on this matter, and he will certainly not balk at mounting an immediate legal challenge to any moves Sevco makes to limit his shareholder rights.

To do this, King would need to raise the issue at another meeting and secure 75% shareholder support, and one would think that will prove impossible, if for no other reason than it would trigger an automatic court battle, which could last years and make any future share issue a non-starter.

I mean, how in the Hell could you realistically go to the City of London to raise capital when you had locked a current major shareholder out of even casting votes, and on top of that ignored explicit shareholder instructions to repay a major loan?

Who in their right mind would want to get involved with a business run like that?

This might well be the dumbest boardroom running a football club anywhere in Europe right now.

The Sevco fans are beyond delighted because this, at last, heralds the arrival of the “Real Rangers Men”, perhaps not realising that these were the people on duty when Whyte walked into the building and tinted the windows green whilst emptying the biscuit tin.

Ashley is not a man you would go out of your way to cross.

Indeed, when one considers the conduct of the Sevco board over this you can’t help but think of the scene from Still Game where Winston is standing at the bus stop and some young neds (with their “wean eating dug”) start to shout at him. In a moment of bravado (because the bus has arrived) he turns around and starts to give them a bit of abuse back.

And when he’s done, he turns back …. and the bus is away.

In short, this one doesn’t end well for them.

I hope, for their sake, that they can afford good lawyers.

On Fields Of Green published a piece on the same subject today. You can read it at this link.