Yesterday, Phil put a piece up which had my antennae twitching; in it he suggested that King’s Ibrox board is not only struggling to find external financing but he’s struggling to find people who are even prepared to help him look for it.
With Phil’s excellent contact book, you have to give this story weight and if it’s true then trouble is in the wind.
It’s pretty clear that King has only three avenues when it comes to keeping the lights on over at Ibrox.
The first is to convince those who serve with him on the board that it’s in their interests to keep funding this clown show.
The second is to sell players.
The third is to find funding from outside of the club.
It’s the third which has broken down.
But options one and two aren’t terribly promising either. We’ll get to the first option in due course, because that’s the interesting one, but option two – selling players – is not one that is going to go down well either in the stands or in the manager’s office.
Gerrard has made the sale of Morelos a red line issue, a matter over which he would be prepared to resign if noises from inside the club are to be believed.
For all the Colombian’s nuttiness – the name Mad Dog fits him like a glove – he is easily the best of the strikers they have at the club and probably the best they can realistically get. He’s not a player who would get into our team, but he looks like a world beater in theirs.
The manager will not countenance his sale.
And how can he realistically accept the sale of the player he appointed captain?
Tavernier is the only other footballer at the club attracting interest. The money they allegedly want for him is absolutely outrageous, and they won’t get near that kind of cash, but the manager would not be happy with his being sold even if they could.
He expects funds too, which he’s clearly not going to get.
I would imagine that King’s chances of getting many players out the door for the kind of money that club needs are going to be slim. Gerrard simply won’t allow it without getting some of the cash back to spend, and if they could afford that they wouldn’t be trying to sell players in the first place.
The numbers don’t lie and not even King can make them.
The only other chance he has of finding money is if the current directors are willing to keep shovelling it into the club in exchange for shares.
That’s a strategy who’s time has just about come and gone.
The Takeover Panel verdict has shown them what King is all about, and on top of that, as Phil has again pointed out, is the messy Sports Direct situation which is almost certainly heading for further litigation and a potentially ruinous verdict.
What director would throw more good money after bad, especially when another possibility looms just over the horizon, and one that must be tantalising those who now see King for what he is, a man who will fight to the last penny in their pockets?
The Takeover Panel forced King into a humiliating climb-down, where he was forced to pledge that he would, at last, make the long awaited share offer. He needs to find £10 million plus and that cash has to be put in escrow, here in the UK, if he is to satisfy the courts.
He claims that nobody is going to be interested in “cashing in” but we already know that the Easdale’s would consider it and the Blue Pitch Holdings guys may yet launch a legal bid to make sure they are included in the offer … and there’s no earthly way they won’t sell.
But the real danger for King may just lie in his own boardroom and he’s a mug if he hasn’t considered it.
The directors who have loaned the club money and got shares in return might well see the Takeover Panel’s enforced offer as the only way to be sure they get some of their cash back … and if those who aren’t part of the original “concert party” decide to “accept” his offer … well the ball is up on the slates, isn’t it?
Trouble continues to mount up for Dave King and for his club.
On and off the park, they continue to be a shambles.
There is no happy ending for their fans whilst this board remains in place, with that man at the helm.
Not that there’s one available to them after he’s gone …
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