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The Situation Facing Sevco Fans Is Hilariously Dark And There Are No Good Options.

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Last night, I posted a piece on the poisonous language of the Sevco fan sites.

As I said in the article, in spite of that toxic atmosphere I read them every day, all the better to hoover up snippets of info and examine the mind-set over there. What has become increasingly clear in the last few months is that the desperation level is climbing.

They realise time is running out if their NewCo is to stop us from winning ten in a row.

They believe that years have been wasted already, that they cannot afford to waste more. I have never been able to understand where they get this from. The chances that they were ever going to catch us from their standing start were so remote as to be virtually zero.

Phil wrote yesterday that Close Brothers have been approached about an extension on their loan and even about additional monies. I think the chances of that happening are equally remote. Close will be alarmed at the suggestion, but not half as alarmed as by rumours of arrestment’s.

That club may well be much closer to the edge of the abyss than any of us were aware.

Phil, as usual, has it right on the nose; even if Close extended the loan and offered more cash, it would only delay the day of destiny. The people who criticise Phil, myself and others because this hasn’t happened yet … you never put a timeframe on this kind of thing.

As long as that club can find a mug (or mugs; I’m looking at you Club 1872) to keep paying the bills at the last minute it could lumber on for years … but those debts will mount up and when the crash comes it will be 100 times what it would be if they entered administration today.

It won’t lumber on for years. Sevco’s directors are just about all tapped out. The King saga with the Takeover Panel has convinced them that they are probably never going to see again the cash they’ve already put in. Only a complete fool would give more under those circumstances. The debt for equity swap, followed by the share issue, that was supposed to recompense them … well that’s not happened and it is fraught with danger.

And some of their fans have realised this, and the talking has started; “what are we going to do?” And by we, I mean them. The supporters themselves. The question is “how are we going to change this?” Which the Celtic fans were asking in the early 90’s.

The trouble is … this isn’t then, they aren’t us and the options they have are limited.

This article will look at those options and the reasons why none of them are good.

Option One: Trust The Board And Hope For The Best.

This is always an option, of course. Celtic fans could have done this back when the White’s and the Kelly’s were running things. Our club, if it had survived, would be in a more perilous place than it is right now, but it’s not impossible that we could have won the odd title or two. Certainly, we wouldn’t have a 60,000 all-seater home, a hotel planned, a museum on the way, years of success, a glittering balance sheet and been at a European final.

But hey, what do I know anyway?

So trust and hope. Is that a viable strategy?

It might be, at another club but this is Sevco. This is a club which believes it has a divine right to rule the game. Waiting for this board to suddenly “get it right” is not really an option because the people on that board are, like the White’s and Kelly’s, so clearly clueless that it would have the same success rate as wishing on a star.

There are a lot of their fans who believe that one of the problems of the last few years has been the swirl of chaos that has surrounded them. It’s been the constant chopping and changing, the lack of any stability, which has got them here … and there is some merit in that view. But they’ve failed to take something into account; King himself.

A lot of the uncertainty before King’s arrival, a lot of the turmoil the club was in, was a direct consequence of King’s campaign of destabilisation. He was the author of much of their previous uncertainty. His aim was to drive down the share price. It was to break the link between the fans and their board. And with the Scottish media on side it worked.

The thing with King is that this is what he does. He is a wrecker. He is not a consolidator or a builder like Fergus was. He seems to thrive on chaos. His entire tenure has been about picking fights and starting fires. And it’s no surprise that the mayhem has continued … except to the self-same Scottish hacks who were telling us just one year ago that stability had returned and that “the banter years (were) over.” This whilst Pedro Caixinha was in the dugout.

So the “do nothing and hope for the best” strategy is doomed because it depends, in part, on Dave King acting honestly and professionally. He never has. He never will. Anyone putting their faith in a board with him at the helm is a pure fool.

Option Two: Campaign For King’s Removal As Chairman.

If there’s one thing the Sevco fans excel at it’s a good protest.

Whether dressed like ISIS and trying to get Celtic fans chucked out of the Broomloan Road stand or standing in front of the BBC hollering that the British Broadcasting Corporation is biased against the quintessentially British club, these guys have elevated the whiny gathering to an art form.

The thing is, there are two reasons why the protest isn’t going to work.

First, King lives in South Africa. He’s far enough removed that he’s not exactly going to be kept up at noise by the noise. And the benefit of distance confers a certain “devil may care” manner on nicer guys than King. Which brings us to the second reason. King doesn’t care anyway.

King has the ultimate in brass necks. He is like Ashley in many ways; Sevco fans protested against his involvement for ages but he would not have buckled had Dodgy Dave not paid him £3 million to get rid of him … and it’s not even clear if he’s actually gone.

A straightforward campaign – of vilification, of protest, of pressure in the stands – might work with other people, but I not this guy. And anyway, any full frontal campaign against King will incur the wrath of his supporters amongst the fan-base.

Don’t forget, this guy has reached out to the lunatic fringe and he’s got Club 1872 right where he wants it.

You want to spark civil war at that club?

This might be the way to do it.

Say King Does Go. What Actually Changes At Ibrox?

Say that the fans do get together and force King out.

What practical benefit will it bring to their boardroom?

The easy answer is this; none whatsoever.

Most of the Celtic bloggers already expect King to go, and not too far in the future. The obvious answer would have been for Alastair Johnson to step into his shoes; another absentee landlord, and although one with business acumen by no means a sugar daddy. Overall impact? Zero.

But of course, Johnson might not even make it now. He is under investigation in relation to what the Resolution 12 campaigners found, and that might be the death notice for his chances. So who would be the next chairman after King, if not him?

Some Real Rangers Man. Perhaps the “Return of Walter”, perhaps not.

The thing is, unless the next chairman comes in with big money to spend he will face exactly the same circumstances as King does, and the exact same limitations.

Option Three: Target The Whole Board Of Directors.

This one is actually being talked about on their forums.

But could it be done?

For those directors who live in Scotland, it’s possible, yes.

These guys may be susceptible to a Sevco fan campaign of intimidation and protest, but to what end?

These are the guys keeping on the lights. They may no longer be willing to, or even able to, but if their fans put deliberate pressure on them they’ll walk, and why wouldn’t they? Who needs that kind of hassle in their life? Sevco fans may applaud that, but who in their right mind is going to step into their shoes knowing that the most ungrateful support in the world will be trying to hound them out within a couple of years if there’s no success?

Sevco fans can’t do this one.

The consequences would be disastrous.

Option Four: Starve The Rats Out. Again.

The one getting the most serious discussion, the one most likely to work.

Above and beyond protests and demos, one sure-fire way of ridding your club of directors you don’t like is to starve them out by depriving the club of cold hard cash. They tried it last time and for us it was the strategy that proved successful in rooting the old board out.

So will it work for them?

Sadly, for them, it won’t. The last protests against the previous board came at a time when they were still in the Championship and operating on a much smaller cost base. The costs have risen precipitously since then. They also had the ability to draw down a couple of million in cash from Ashley.

The protests and boycotts had a limited effect because they were limited in scale. Try doing the same now, with the cost base through the roof and the club in debt to external sources … nobody would be on hand to save them.

Forcing the club towards a cash shortfall on that level would be madly dangerous.

The wheels could quite literally come off the whole thing. Even a 20% draw-down in season ticket numbers in the next campaign could force the club towards the wall … that’s the peril they are currently in. Sevco fans appear not to realise how serious that is.

Without their continuing to shovel money in, their club is pretty much screwed.

Starving out the current board would tip them into the abyss.

Nothing surer.

Option Five: A Fan Led Takeover Fronted By The Real Rangers Men.

My favourite scenario. Imagine for a second that this came off; imagine Sevco fans running Sevco with the old guard as their directors? How long would it take for the state they are in right now to look like something from a dream? How long until the whole thing collapsed, big time?

You only have to listen to some of these people to know how ridiculous it would be.

Even if there was a means for doing so – and it’s a minefield, as I’ll discuss in a later piece – it would be quite simply untenable.

Sevco fans are not cut out for taking those kind of decisions. Their quest to stop ten in a row would result in the most perilous course of action ever taken by a Scottish club; they would quite literally spend their way to the grave.

The very idea of it makes me laugh. Can you imagine transfer strategy meetings? The demands on the manager and the players? The makeup of the board itself? Which fan group would get precedent? Which forums would be able to work together?

What happened at Hearts and elsewhere is impossible at Sevco; it might be impossible at any club with such a big fan-base.

You could, if you were lucky, get together a group of people from different agencies all working together with the “greater good” in mind, but most of them have no agreed view on what that phrase means.

Is it long-term prosperity or short-term success? Is it sustainability, or chasing dreams? Is it working with other clubs, or putting the walls up ever higher?

No easy answers. And the whole idea … it’s just bonkers.

Option Six: Spend, Spend, Spend. Finance The Recovery With Their Own Money.

The only alternative to a new board or continuing with the current one on the present level of financing is to spend more.

For season ticket prices to rise, for their fans to buy more jerseys, for them to pick up the slack with a share issue, for membership schemes, for debentures, for the cost of everything to sky-rocket.

And curiously enough, in one of his moments of Total Honesty this is what Dave King told them would have to be. I

n his view, Rangers had been built on their fans outspending ours and if they wanted Sevco to have similar success they’d have to do so again.

But that was the last message their fans wanted to hear.

Their forums buzz with accusations about the board not putting in the funds they promised; in point of fact, I have to give their directors credit here because they have seriously “over-invested” already. The club only stays afloat because these people are paying the bills, but that’s never enough.

Yes King made a lot of shady promises, but he always said that this was the way forward.

Could, would, Sevco fans stand for that? Would they put their money where their mouths are? History suggests not. They didn’t bail Murray out when he tried to sell shares to pay off the club’s £80 million debts; he swallowed most of it himself. Charles Green’s share issue would have been under-subscribed had he not managed to find mugs in the City. Club 1872 recently attempted to raise an extra £1 million for the club … they got just over half.

There’s no appetite amongst their fans for carrying the water; they want someone else to do it.

They want sugar-daddies and investors, people willing to hand the manager tens of millions and wage structure be damned.

Sevco Fans Are Too Late To Prevent Whatever Is Coming.

The options are simple, but the problems with almost all of them appear to rule most out.

When our fan revolution ousted the Kelly’s and White’s we were only able to do it because professional people stood ready to move in, and there was a man like Fergus waiting in the wings. No such saviour stands ready to take King’s place and his time at the club has exposed any future consortium to all the legal perils like Takeover Panel scrutiny that they’d want to avoid.

The fans themselves are divided and utterly powerless. You cannot bully the men in charge at the moment without the risk that they will pull the plug on the whole thing. You cannot bully King because King has withstood greater pressure than any the Sevco fans can ever hope to bring to bear. Genuine businessmen like Ashley won’t touch the club as it is; a fan revolution that was run in such a manner would dissuade anyone who even might consider it.

The divisions amongst the support make any co-ordinated action a non-starter in the first place, and the only other options open to them are to continue buying tickets and shirts and everything else and hope for the best or to boycott and risk even greater destruction.

It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so shocking.

They have been sold down the river by successive boards now, but what’s worse, as I’ll discuss tomorrow, is the way all this has been allowed to happen by a media that lies to them and the governing bodies who have failed utterly in any of their own responsibilities.

That’s the real story here.

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