The Ibrox fans are being treated like mugs by a media trading on mad takeover talk.

Ever since the Ibrox takeover story surfaced about a month ago, the newspapers have been running constant stories about the supposed plans, the money involved, and the individuals behind it—without a single factual word to back any of it up. It’s all been fantasy.

On the podcast the other night we had a little chat about it. I asked Joe at the end of one of the points if he was coming around to my way of thinking—that this will end in a damp squib. That someone will take a minority stake in the club, perhaps as much as 30%, get some seats on the board, gain a bit of influence, and everyone involved will try to paint that as some kind of major victory.

I could be completely wrong, of course. But there’s one thing I’m 100% sure of: this takeover will never deliver in the way Ibrox fans both want and expect. It is simply impossible. One of the reasons why is that so much of this exists only in their imaginations, and that’s exactly where a lot of people want to keep it.

If they had to stick to facts, there’d be nothing to report.

But facts would also be very inconvenient because they’d get in the way of the flights of fancy necessary to keep this train on the tracks long enough to sell season tickets. And above all else, that has to happen. All the due diligence in the world won’t matter. All the business plans in the world won’t count for anything unless that club can sell its full allocation of season tickets.

So the truth is, there’s no way this deal is going to deliver on the scale Ibrox fans expect. And one of the reasons why is that a lot of those reporting on this are doing so in a fundamentally dishonest fashion. That’s what the Ibrox support is reading right now—a media picture that does not resemble the truth at all.

Earlier this week, Keith Jackson talked about how a delegation had visited the training ground and, to him, this automatically translated into tens of millions of pounds being spent on upgrades.

What I saw instead was a group of potential investors doing a bit of due diligence—walking around, checking things out, looking at costs and what the operation is delivering. They want to know if they’ll have to pour money into an organisation that should already be making things happen.

In many ways, this mirrors a problem we have at Celtic.

Our academy system doesn’t deliver. It doesn’t improve standards. It’s a joke—a colossal failure in Scottish football. But if anything, theirs is worse. Those in the clown car claiming their training ground is superior to ours are welcome to do so, but at least ours has produced a Kieran Tierney, a Callum McGregor, a James Forrest—players who’ve made it into the first team and stayed there.

Their academy, in contrast, has produced embarrassingly few players who’ve graduated to the first team and stayed there for any length of time. The sheer number of signings they’ve made in recent years—many of whom wouldn’t even make our bench—is testament to that failure. It costs a fortune and delivers nothing tangible.

But that’s not the area being discussed as a place where investors might pump tens of millions, only to see little return. No, the fantasy is that they’ll front-load a massive transfer war chest—an idea that is both ridiculous and in direct opposition to UEFA regulations. Then there’s the nonsense about increasing ground capacity, forming partnerships with American football teams, and hosting NFL games at Ibrox to boost commercial revenue. It’s all pie in the sky.

But nowhere is the fantasy more absurd, and the media’s reporting more dishonest, than when they talk about the supposed wealth of those involved in this deal. Every time we mention it on this blog, another example emerges of journalists writing cheques these people might not be able to cash.

There’s an assumption that Ibrox is dealing with a group of billionaires willing to throw their own money away in pursuit of glory.

As I’ve said before, I have no doubt these individuals have a decent net worth. But when a publication like Glasgow World runs a headline saying, “How much cash do Andrew Cavenagh’s company manage amid Rangers takeover? Investor’s key role in focus”, I want to scream.

You’ll notice I haven’t removed the word “Rangers” from that headline, as I usually do. That’s because I have no intention of touching a sentence that’s already a grammatical train wreck or an example of lazy editing. I have no intention of doing their work for them. They should be able to edit their own damn writing.

More important than the bad grammar is the obvious intent behind that headline—to paint a picture of a guy with billions of dollars at his disposal. Because that’s what keeps the gravy train running for sites like Glasgow World. That’s what brings them clicks and hits—peddling an idea that everyone involved knows is a grotesque lie.

It doesn’t matter how much money his company manages—that’s not his money. But that’s the inference behind such headlines. That he’s personally sitting on a fortune with tens of millions to throw away, all ready to funnel it into Ibrox for the sake of boosting their fans’ egos.

His company controls £5.6 billion in assets. The 49ers group has even more billions under management. But none of that is money the Ibrox club can spend. It’s all tied up, already accounted for, doing other things—whether in insurance premiums, real estate, or infrastructure. That money is already busy.

None of it will be flowing into Ibrox.

Any investment will come from the individuals themselves, not from the companies they own or the assets they manage. But as long as those big numbers keep being thrown around, nobody questions the real picture. Nobody stops to wonder if that tour of the Ibrox Academy wasn’t about where to invest but where to cut.

No one is asking the hard questions. As Joe McHugh put it on the podcast the other night, is this just a case of Carnegie and others “kicking the tyres,” trying to figure out what this club is actually worth?

As I said before, there’s no due diligence being done by those selling the shares. That’s the key thing here. All the due diligence is being done by the people who might buy them. And that’s sometimes how it works in business.

The sellers don’t care what the buyers intend to do once they take control. It’s like a used car salesman—you want to buy an old banger for your granny or use it to ram-raid a petrol station? That’s none of his concern.

But these are fans who’ve already seen one club snatched away from them. They’ve already seen the club that replaced it ransacked by people who were in and out for a quick buck, with no care for the mess they left behind. And yet, they’re not demanding more from the media. They’re not doing their own digging.

Instead, they comfort themselves with fantasies that everything will be fine. It’s never dawned on them that maybe, just maybe, it won’t be.

And that’s why they deserve everything they get. That’s why they deserve everything their media allies are feeding them.

The latest Trinity Tims podcast is out now.