The Ibrox Fakeover unravels further… and Jackson is starting to sweat it.

The day before yesterday, I published an article about how the so-called Ibrox takeover was starting to look more like a fakeover. That article was very well received — except, of course, by the Ibrox fan media, where they immediately tried to poke holes in it. But the piece is bomb-proof. The Ibrox “takeover”? Not so much.

That group isn’t going to acquire enough of that club to feel secure enough to pursue the grand plans that some people seem to think are just around the corner.

As I took great pains to point out, the magic number isn’t 51% of the shares.

It’s 75%. Because at 75% you can pass a special resolution — and that’s necessary if you want to do all the grandiose things like changing the corporate structure, issuing new shares, altering the company name and so on.

That’s the only way anyone is going to feel confident that the big-ticket items won’t be overturned later.

Keith Jackson dropped a bombshell last week: they’re only halfway to getting the 51% they need to be the majority controllers.

And if they’re only halfway to that, they’re nowhere near 75%. Not even close. And unless you can pass not just one special resolution but a series of them, that club is still not fully under your control — and anything can happen.

From the start, this whole thing has been suspect. It’s depended on leaks to one of the most notoriously gullible alleged journalists working at any Scottish paper. We all wondered early doors why, if this was a legitimate takeover, the story wasn’t leaked to a pro-board Ibrox journalist like Chris Jack — someone they could’ve spoon-fed the full inside scoop, who’d then walk away with the exclusive and maybe even a book deal at the end of it.

Instead, someone handed it to Keith Jackson.

Jackson, you’ll remember, has been one of the board’s most savage critics.

But he’s friendly with Dave King.

And it wasn’t remotely surprising when we found out that the man behind this is, in fact, none other than Dave King.

What John McHugh, my colleague on the podcast, has suspected right from the beginning is that King has found a willing buyer for his shares — and probably roped in one or two directors along the way. But because of his involvement, others aren’t quite so sure.

Jackson and the rest of the Daily Record team are now visibly flapping.

They know this is dragging on longer than it was supposed to.

They know season tickets are now being sold.

And they know that if this all collapses, it’s going to look — to the entire football world — exactly like what some people said it was right from the start: nothing but a scam to flog those very same tickets. If Jackson and his newspaper have been party to that scam — if they’ve been gullible enough to fall into line (and it wouldn’t be the first time, let’s not forget) — then hell mend them.

Let’s remember: this exclusive wasn’t the result of some deep-dive investigative journalism.

It was a story someone handed them on a plate. They didn’t even question whether the motives of those behind it were sound. Right from the off, the fact that Jackson was the conduit for this story was deeply suspicious. Because Jackson only has one quality that makes him suitable for a story like this: he’s just gullible enough not to ask questions, not to dig too deep, and not to want too many answers.

Yesterday, on the Record podcast, you could hear the tremble in his voice as he delivered the latest “update” to the fans.

Those trying to sell the shares are growing impatient — they want their money so they can walk away. The Americans themselves are getting frustrated at some of the people around the Ibrox boardroom table, who own shares and still aren’t ready to sell.

Now here’s where I think the real fun lies. I do believe there’s probably a consortium. I don’t know if the 49ers are involved, but I think there is a group of Americans trying to acquire a majority — or at least enough of an interest to pull the strings.

And I think some of the uncommitted shareholders now realise these guys need that 51% minimum— and they’re playing the waiting game, betting that the longer this drags on, the more desperate the buyers become, and the higher the price goes.

And they might be right.

But they might also be wrong. That has to be considered too.

If they’re already playing chicken, the Americans can just as easily walk away as raise their offer. At a certain point, this starts to look like a bad deal for everyone. Eventually, the game’s just not worth the candle. And I suspect the Americans are already dangerously close to that point.

Look at what’s happening in the States right now; Trump is on the rampage.

All the old certainties are falling away. He has even mused about not honouring US debt obligations, secured against government bonds.

If US treasury bonds are no longer solid, who in America has the certitude to invest money somewhere else?

Nobody sane would dare. This is a singuarly bad time to be in the cross-hairs of a US takeover.

One thing I do know: the more details that emerge — the more Jackson rolls out these mealy-mouthed updates — the less convincing the whole thing sounds. If they can’t get 51%, they might as well walk away now. Because that’s the bare minimum for even the illusion of control.

To run that table? You need another 25% beyond that.

And everyone should know by now, especially after reading my last piece, that calling this a “change of ownership” is grossly misleading. These people might come in and become the largest bloc of shareholders — they might even “run the show” — but this is not a change of ownership.

A real change of ownership, in the sense being portrayed in the press, would involve a controlling interest between 70% and 90%.

There is no scenario — none — in which they’re getting anywhere close to that.

Remember what I wrote: you don’t build a patio on a house you’re renting. You only do that when you own it.

And that assumes anyone involved here actually wants to build a patio in the first place.

That’s still very much in doubt. Because either these are the Leeds guys — in which case, they didn’t do any of this there — or they’re totally unrelated to Leeds, in which case the media doesn’t have a clue who they are or what they want.

What I do know is that Jackson’s certainty has collapsed. Instead of the 49ers “owning” the club, it’s now supposedly just “American controlled.”

But owning and controlling are very different things — as this saga is demonstrating in real time. He claims it could be wrapped up by the end of April. He says it should be wrapped up by the end of April. But “could” and “should” are doing a lot of heavy lifting in those sentences.

This is the beginning of the story being rolled back.

As Eric said to me yesterday — this is the start of the end of the entire fakeover.

One of the more hilarious recent moments was Jackson blaming time zones for the delay in completing the deal.

As if these transnational businessmen don’t know how to check a clock and subtract a few hours.

That’s a sure sign that he’s starting to realise this might not happen at all.

This entire thing is vanishing down a rabbit hole.

But since a lot of people think it emerged from a rabbit hole in the first place, maybe that’s not such a weird place for it to end up.

I still think some version of this will happen. I still think American investors will get a chunk of the Ibrox shareholding — probably enough to wield some power in the boardroom. But their hands will remain firmly in their pockets when it comes to spending serious money. And if the Ibrox fans don’t believe that, they should take a long, hard look south of the border — at the carnage American owners have left behind at club after club.

They should also cast a wary eye across the Atlantic. That’s where the real problems might lie.

The fakeover is starting to unravel. And Jackson and his pals are in genuine panic mode because they’re on the verge of being made to look stupid.

Here’s the thing though — they are stupid.

And that’s exactly why they were picked to push this story out into the world in the first place.