No wild promises, talk of ‘low-ego decision-making’, a clear statement that this is about ‘sustained winning and winning sustainably’ rather than chucking money around willy-nilly, a determination to create a meritocracy in which a team of the best-available people will be ‘empowered’ to make decisions and then held accountable.
That was the sales pitch chairman Andrew Cavenagh and vice-chair Paraag Marathe made to shareholders at the Rangers EGM as their consortium’s £20million investment was rubberstamped last Monday. And you know what? From initial reactions, it feels like this was exactly the kind of sensible, bluster-free presentation that fans of the Ibrox club wanted to hear after a decade and more of disaster and chaos.
Yeah, Cavenagh and Marathe are hardly Barnum and Bailey. They are two corporate types in suits, albeit with a nice line in self-deprecation, who want to stay largely out of the spotlight. With all the stuff about data and process and whatnot, you could argue they’re a little bit dull.
There has also been some disquiet over the speed of their progress in rebuilding a squad proved to be wholly inadequate last term, particularly with the first friendly of pre-season taking place on Sunday and a Champions League qualifier with Panathinaikos 23 days away.
However, if anything has bought them time in putting their own particular mark on Rangers, it has been Sir David Murray crawling out of the woodwork, dragging everyone back into the dark heart of the madness that saw him sell the club to Craig Whyte for a pound in 2011 and see it plunge into a financial black hole less than a year later.
Cavenagh and Marathe come across as very different characters to Murray and many of the others who have come since. They are the antithesis of all the grandstanding and waste that has scarred the place for decades now – and that’s their biggest selling point of all.
Sir David Murray sparked fresh controversy as he promoted his autobiography, Mettle
Rangers chiefs Andrew Cavenagh and (right) Paarag Marathe have made no wild promises
Kevin Thelwell and Russell Martin flank Rangers’ first summer signing, full-back Max Aarons
Why Murray chose to reappear in public days after that EGM to promote a book about his life is anyone’s guess. Why he has written that book, plugged almost exclusively on his reflections on sending Rangers up the Suwannee without a paddle, is baffling too. Is it some kind of plea for forgiveness? An attempt to reframe his legacy?
If so, it has failed on both counts. It is utterly impossible, though, to work what was going through his mind when, in an interview with Mail Sport, he started casting aspersions on how Cavenagh and Marathe’s US consortium is going about its work in these early days of trying to put a bruised, battered institution back on track.
‘In the short term, I would judge them on the first three sales and the first three financial signings they make, because that will give you an indication of direction of travel,’ he said. ‘So, who have they signed so far? A loan player from Bournemouth (Max Aarons), who’s not played a lot of football, but who Russell Martin knew from Norwich.
‘I hope they give Martin the tools. I’m not sure they’ve paid off all the players they’ve got. Do they still have debts to pay? Instead of £20m, is that going for new players or is that just going in the books?’
Murray passing comment on how Rangers ought to be run after everything that has happened is quite jawdropping.
A large rump of Rangers fans, for starters, don’t want to hear anything from Murray on anything, and you can barely blame them. They certainly don’t want to hear him pick faults in the new regime’s approach, particularly when it comes to not spending enough in the transfer market.
Craig Whyte’s purchase of Rangers for £1 eventually led the club into financial meltdown
Dutch manager Dick Advocaat oversaw a period of huge spending on players at Ibrox
Losing the plot in the market is what got the club into this whole pickle in the first place. Murray might not like it, but everything that led to Whyte taking over, meltdown in 2012 and the ensuing cavalcade of horrors rests with him.
When Dick Advocaat took over as manager following the failure to win 10-In-A-Row in 1999, spending became unsustainable. By 2004, the club was almost £75million in debt.
Much continues to be made of how that debt was severely reduced before Murray’s reign reached its end point, but there is little discussion of the 2004 rights issue that played a part.
It raised £51m, but up to £50m of that had been underwritten by his own Murray MHL company. At the same time, the use of Employee Benefit Trusts from 2001 to 2010 was a risky strategy that backfired big-time, playing a massive role in the club eventually being so difficult to sell.
Everything just came to a head in the end, including the levels of borrowing by his empire – estimated in some quarters to be up to £900m – that Lloyds Banking Group very gradually wanted to call back in after taking over HBOS.
In reality, despite the blanket coverage of his memoirs, Murray hasn’t had an awful lot to say that’s new. His established position on Whyte taking over was that he was ‘duped’. This week, he simply reiterated he didn’t know Whyte, whom he described as ‘affable and plausible’, was planning to use money borrowed from ticket firm Ticketus against future season ticket sales to complete the deal.
Alastair Johnston voiced strong opposition to Craig Whyte’s takeover while on the Ibrox board
‘A journalist asked me at the time if our due diligence should have been more thorough,’ said Murray. ‘It is easy to look back and say: “Yes, of course it should”, but anyone typing Whyte’s name into Google in 2011 would have found one article from years before.’
All the more reason to be forensic then, no? Yet, in Whyte’s 2017 fraud trial, solicitor David Horne, a key associate of Murray, when asked what had been spent on researching Whyte’s interest, said: ‘I don’t know – possibly nothing’.
In that same trial, an email was presented in which another of Murray’s main men, Mike McGill, was alleged to have described Whyte’s camp as ‘useless twits’ who ‘don’t have the funds’.
Alastair Johnston, then on the Ibrox board, opposed the takeover vehemently and passed on a private investigator’s report on Whyte.
‘All that information was shared with the Murray Group, because there wasn’t much we could do about it other than jump up and down and scream and shout, which is what we did,’ he said.
Dave King, also a director, wrote to the Takeover Panel in April 2011 to state ‘there are concerns over the source of the funds’ and warned of the potential for future police involvement.
Pundit and former Rangers striker Kris Boyd (right) feels Murray’s insight is worth heeding
Knowing Murray, it still seems remarkable he was unable to hear any of these many alarm bells clanging around him.
He has also claimed this week, contrary to popular belief, that Lloyds did not force him to sell. Yet, Johnston, in an interview with Business7 in 2012, stated that a senior bank boss told him Murray had been ‘incentivised’ to hand Rangers to Whyte and was under ‘significant pressure’.
‘In the last few years, he lost his business discipline, then panicked when he saw Armageddon coming,’ said Johnston.
Whatever the truth, Murray really ought to make this his last flirtation with matters related to Rangers. The only thing it has succeeded in doing is bringing anger back to the surface that has never really healed – not properly – since 2012.
Of course, he still has those who defend him. Former Rangers striker Kris Boyd stated yesterday that he believes Cavenagh and Marathe should line up a meeting with the steel magnate to pick his brains.
It’s some take all right. Marathe is a hugely credible individual with long-term experience of first turning round the San Francisco 49ers and then Leeds United. Why would he need a sitdown with a guy who flogged Rangers for a quid to some googly-eyed mystery man who ended up driving it into a liquidation event?
Helpfully, Murray has already offered a useful perspective on how relevant his back story might be. ‘The way I ran a football club, you couldn’t run it like that today,’ he said.
Thank heavens for that.
Hearts backer Bloom won’t be easily blown off course
Well, there’s been no backing down from Tony Bloom since his near-£10million investment in Hearts was voted through. Just doubling down.
His statement in midweek that he believes ‘in the club’s ability to disrupt the pattern of domination of Scottish football which has been in place for far too long’ is music to the ears of anyone who wants to see the Premiership become a more multi-pronged affair than it has been in some time.
Bloom’s influence has already helped lead Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise to a first title in 90 years and turned Brighton into a club punching well above their weight, so he is definitely someone to be reckoned with. And beginning his involvement with such assertive statements should be welcomed by the club’s support. What’s not to like about being given something special to believe in?
Investor Tony Bloom insists Hearts can break the Old Firm duopoly in the Scottish Premiership
Former captain Lawrence Shankland’s future looks set to lie away from Tynecastle
Of course, judgment will now be made on the actions of the club’s management – with the handling of striker Lawrence Shankland’s situation the first big test.
In truth, the decision on what he’s doing following the expiry of his contract should have been taken before the first-team squad flew out to Spain for pre-season training and definitely can’t wait any longer.
Elsewhere in today’s paper, we report that Shankland now looks like leaving after a failure to reach agreement in negotiations.
That’s fine. If Hearts are going to get where Bloom wants them to be, they can’t afford to hang around waiting for anyone. Far less a guy who doesn’t look sure if he wants to be on board or not.
Spare us the gimmicky TV chats with substitutes
Touchline interviews with substituted players under the terms of a bankbusting new TV deal for the English Premier League are just the worst idea ever.
Who wants to hear a player trotting out platitudes while the action is charging ahead on the pitch? What are they going to offer other than an unwelcome distraction?
Yes, it’s nice to see coverage of the national sport move into new dimensions and become more layered, but there has to be a strong vision in terms of how any new developments are actually going to improve it.
From everything you read, hear and get told, player interviews are not of any great interest to the next generation.
Interviews with substituted players are part of the new English Premier League broadcast deal
They don’t drive a heck of a lot of traffic. And that’s when those speaking are sitting down peacefully with time to think rather than standing at the side of the pitch tired, stressed, covered in sweat and probably brassed-off at being replaced.
In addition to ‘influencers’ popping up here, there and everywhere to ask footballers what their favourite colour of socks is, it just feels telly companies are losing sight of what matters.
Good commentators, good camerawork, sharp graphics that spell out key events, hard interviewing of managers and players on pressing issues and analysts who take you inside the game, showing you things you don’t see, have got to remain firmly at the centre of it all – no matter the new-fangled bells and whistles.
