http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/football/Sale-of-Rangers-FC-39will.6650410.jp

 

Quote

Sale of Rangers FC 'will go ahead by mid-January'

 

Published Date: 05 December 2010

By Tom English

 

A DEAL to sell Rangers Football Club to Scots venture capitalist Craig Whyte will go though by the middle of January, according to senior sources at the club.

Whyte, 39, met with Ibrox chairman Alastair Johnston in Glasgow to discuss the purchase of Sir David Murray's shareholding in the club.

 

The proposed £33 million deal will wipe out the existing debt that has stymied Rangers in the transfer market for two years.

 

Yesterday, sources at Rangers said the deal, barring any late hitches, could be completed before Christmas but it is more likely that it will be done by the middle of January. "We can't say with 100 per cent certainty, but Whyte has the money and is very convincing. We think the deal will happen," said the source.

 

Murray has presided over Rangers for 22 years but has been keen to sell his stake for some time.

 

Hopefully the debt thing is not true as that is what is holding them back at the moment.

There's no danger they are not going to want to at least speak to dm. We face interesting times.

too interesting

If deek says anything but "no I'm. Happy here don't want to talk to them" it'll be disastrous. Both with the fans and with the players.

Can't see McInnes going there, he's not daft. He's also given every indication that he's fully committed to the club and here for the long run, doubt there's any reason to worry!

Seems the chaos continues, news still reporting Warburton saying he hasnt resigned.

 

12/1 Morton tomorrow btw 

Seems the chaos continues, news still reporting Warburton saying he hasnt resigned.

 

12/1 Morton tomorrow btw 

 

Apparently he intents turning up to take training session this morning.

Seems the chaos continues, news still reporting Warburton saying he hasnt resigned.

 

12/1 Morton tomorrow btw 

 

14s with Paddy Power (well they were yesterday, might've changed overnight.

Apparently he intents turning up to take training session this morning.

 

With one eye on the upcoming legal proceedings.........

Rangers?

 

In court?

 

Surely not.

Fucking hilarious! More than grounds for 3 cases of wrongful dismissal.

It's almost as if they are deliberately pouring money down the drain.

the huns say he resigned on Wednesday yet he was still talking to the media and taking training on Friday. Absolutely superb. This will cost a bit in compo and court fees. The only downside being there will no doubt be confidentiality clauses built into any agreement.

 

I wasn't going to watch their game against Morton, but I might have to now...

Can almost imagine a John Terry type scenario, bread man appears in his rangers tracksuit walking around like nothings happened 

McLeish being mentioned.

 

 

Last I heard he was on the piss.

14s with Paddy Power (well they were yesterday, might've changed overnight.

 

Back to 12/1 this morning.

Fancied a piece of the action at that price, so fiver on them.

McLeish being mentioned.

 

 

Last I heard he was on the piss.

 

It would endear him more to the troglodyte, knuckle scraping cunts if he did.

 

 

14s with Paddy Power (well they were yesterday, might've changed overnight.

Nah it had gone by the time I saw this news about 5am. Was still 14s on Betfair, but best price was 12 everywhere else.

 

Still a great price, huns in disarray before this, Morton going strong, been no shocks this season, this could be it....we can all hope 

McLeish being mentioned.

 

 

Last I heard he was on the piss.

Looking at him on TV the now, he's certainly got a peever's coupon these days.

Fit did him and Winker Watson fa' oot aboot?

See some no mark hack spouting off that the last straw for The Breadman was King's refusal to sanction an offer of £1m for Hayes in the transfer window. Sure these cunts lie awake a night just thinking up controversial stories to write.

See some no mark hack spouting off that the last straw for The Breadman was King's refusal to sanction an offer of £1m for Hayes in the transfer window. Sure these cunts lie awake a night just thinking up controversial stories to write.

 

aye, cos they had a million to burn anyway.  Have Preston even received any of that money for that no mark?

"Dave King's refusal to fund moves for Aberdeen's Jonny Hayes and West Ham youngster Reece Oxford confirmed that trust at Ibrox was broken beyond repair.

 

AS in most relationship breakdowns, there was fault on both sides.

 

It’s just unfortunate for Rangers that this one had to end so bitterly and amid such acrimony, farce and rancour.

 

Let’s be clear, for some weeks now the main protagonists inside the old curiosity shop of Ibrox knew Mark Warburton’s time at the club was effectively already up.

 

He was a lame-duck manager from the moment he was summoned to a board meeting like a naughty schoolboy, shoving jotters down the back of his pants while on the receiving end of a withering appraisal from his bosses.

 

Anyone who has had any dealings with Warburton during his 18 months in Glasgow will testify that the Englishman does not respond well to even the most constructive of criticism.

 

When a manager finds himself yelling “I’m not thin skinned!” at every second press conference then it’s usually a sure sign that he is. So chairman Dave King and his board of directors must surely have known Warburton was likely to react badly to having his trousers pulled down by his superiors and his performance given such a brutal spanking.

 

If they were wishing to sicken him then this was a smart way of going about it.

 

But it was a subsequent refusal by the board to back their man with more of their money in the final few days of the January transfer market which meant that Warburton’s time was unquestionably over.

 

Having highlighted problems within his team, King and his men then denied him the opportunity to fix them.

 

It was at this point – when all remaining trust had gone – that the divorce ought to have been cemented and made official.

 

Warburton had wanted to recruit at least two players.

 

One of them was West Ham’s talented teenager Reece Oxford, who was available on loan at a knockdown price. The other was Aberdeen’s talisman Jonny Hayes, who would have cost in the region of £1million.

 

Oxford is a central defender who can also operate as a specialised midfield anchor –

a role which Warburton was never able to fill despite all of his many flurries into the transfer market.

 

Hayes would have been viewed by the management team as an upgrade on Michael O'Halloran, who would in turn have been allowed to leave the club on loan.

 

Whether or not these players would have significantly improved the performance level of Warburton’s team is now a matter of conjecture.

 

Also, having pumped so much of their own hard earned into bankrolling the club, King and his men had every right to ask serious questions of how Warburton was spending it given that so few of his most recent 11 purchases have proved to be value for money.

 

Of course they did.

 

But, having done so, they took it one huge step further by deciding they could no longer invest their faith in the manager.

 

The fact the board were not interested in facilitating either of these deals is critical to the narrative of Warburton’s demise. At that moment there was nowhere left this relationship to run.

 

It was no longer a case of IF Warburton was going to go, just a matter of when and in what circumstances.

 

Perhaps, on reflection, King and his directors will wish they had handled things differently rather than allow it to deteriorate into such an unedifying, tawdry episode.

 

They should have acted swiftly and professionally by thanking Warburton, Davie Weir and Frank McParland for their best efforts, paying them up as contractually obliged and sending them on their way.

 

But that would have cost more than £1m.

 

Instead, they triggered a period of internal suspicion and intense paranoia. As a stand-off developed between the boardroom and the dugout, so the atmosphere inside the club became increasingly toxic.

 

Warburton suspected influential figures were working against him at a time when he was in need of the support of his own club. That rather than help him achieve success, they sought to undermine and manipulate.

 

On the other side of this divide, King and the board convinced themselves that

Warburton and his wing men were working their ticket, leaking sensitive information to this newspaper and digging an escape tunnel back to England.

 

On top of all this, chairman and manager were already completely estranged.

 

Until that bad-tempered exchange in the boardroom, they had not held a conversation since last May, when King was doubling the terms of Warbs’ contract through gritted teeth.

 

So this messy split was inevitable. It was only a question of how it would come to an end. Or, more specifically, how much it would cost.

 

When Warburton’s representative suggested that the most elegant solution would be to allow the management team to move elsewhere without haggling over club-to-club compensation, King appears to have spotted an opportunity to force them out for free.

 

And so now the matter is hurtling towards yet another angry courtroom squabble with Warburton, Weir and McParland still wondering how they find themselves out of work without one of them tendering a letter of resignation.

 

The agent’s role in this mess should not be overlooked. His attempt at offering an olive branch as a solution appears to have been a spectacular tactical blunder.

 

But while King might believe he has seized an opportunity and acted ruthlessly, saving the club a small fortune, he also cost Rangers another huge chunk of its own credibility, not to mention its dignity with that farce on Friday night.

 

To compound this the following day by releasing a statement, the tone of which was needlessly snide and hugely insulting towards Warburton and Hall of Famer Weir, was unbecoming of his chair.

 

King’s words may have packed a punch – while pandering to his public – but they were severely lacking in class.

 

In parts, they also made very little sense. How can it be, for example, that the contracts of employment were terminated “immediately” after those discussions on Monday and yet Warburton and Weir were still at their work on Friday and even speaking to the media?

 

That’s an insult to the intelligence of anyone who read it, along with the preposterous notion that it takes days to write a simple press release. King also came up with the following line: “In order for us to achieve our ambitions we need employees that, like your board members, will always put Rangers first.”

 

Forgetting for a moment that this is from a stay-away chairman who has attended

just one match all season, this tub-thumping motto strikes at the very heart of the entire Warburton affair.

 

If King’s priority is really to protect the interests of his club, rather than grasp at every cheapest available option, then he would surely have afforded Warburton and Weir the courtesy of leaving in more dignified, professional circumstances.

 

Breaking up is never easy. But rowing about it in full view of the public?

 

This hardly casts Rangers in an attractive light and, at a time when King is looking to lure a new manager into his life, this act of naked aggression may yet do the club’s reputation more harm than good."

 

 

 

One of them was West Ham’s talented teenager Reece Oxford, who was available on loan at a knockdown price. The other was Aberdeen’s talisman Jonny Hayes, who would have cost in the region of £1million.

 

What, Reece Oxford who knocked them back for mighty Reading, that Reece Oxford? 

 

 

No danger we would have sold hayes to them for a mill.  Just no way. 

Well of course, listening to the radio last night, it would seem that if the money had been made available then they would have just went and got him.

 

There was also mention of a player plus £300,000

We better not have been dealing with these bastards.

 

On another note, who ever thought that the nasal whinings of Barry Ferguson would make good radio?

I think there would be genuine riots (rightly so) if we were even contemplating it. Which I don't think the club's hierarchy are stupid enough to do. As tlg says,  no danger whatsoever

Hmmmm, I'd like to think so but I'm not so sure.

Hmmmm, I'd like to think so but I'm not so sure.

 

 

This. I don't think the big wheels at the top of the club would've concerned themselves too much with the thoughts of some of us neanderthal football fans.

Selling Hayes to an English club is one matter, but I seriously doubt our board would have sold our best player to our closest (in league table terms) rivals halfway through the season for any sum.

 

We're not Dundee Utd.