Pay attention you lot!

At his stage in the Sevco sitcom if you think you know what is going on then you must be either:

(1)    Not paying enough attention

(2)     Paul McConnville  

The labyrinthine nature of this corporate omnishambles is quite quite vast and more and more of it will soon be within the purview of the lawyers.

If you go to the toilet or put the kettle on you’ll have missed the recent revelation.

I am reliably informed that the chaps at the SFA are currently looking fretfully at the whole mess.

It was they, after all, who allowed the new Holding Club into Scottish football.

If Mr Regan and his buddy Mr Doncaster had achieved their preferred option then this malformed organism would currently be in the top flight of Scottish football.

Only No To New Co and Turnbull Hutton prevented that injustice from happening.

I am reliably informed that there is all manner of revelations to come out through the Twitter Machine this week and I know that Madam Charlotte isn’t faking it.

Some in the MSM are finally suggesting that all isn’t well with Sevco’s cash flow and now even Keith Jackson (Sports Writer of the Year) uses the scary word “unsustainable”.

Yet the loyal chaps who bought Sevco season tickets last year tell each other that there is nothing to worry about.

I am reminded how they snarled and scoffed when I suggested that the Craig Whyte regime might not be all they hoped it would be.

Then exactly a year later I proffered the view that Charlie might soon be more loved in the Green half of Glasgow than in the dignified place where you can catch Rangersitis.

Paul Murray said that the current business model at Ibrox was “not viable”.

I believe he is correct in that contention.

Sevco need to be bank rolled from private funds or failing that secure bank borrowing.

I do not think the latter is possible given their trading figures and the very public shambolic boardroom infighting.

Therefore the original investors need to continue to shore up the operation or the good ship Sevco is a goner.

Even the most brutal austerity programme would run into a wall of irreducible overheads for the size of stadium that John Brown played for.

Moreover, extra revenues will not be unearthed to cover the shortfall.

While all of this is happening the chaps on the 6th floor of Hampden are operating the psychological belay.

Basically you look up at the lad leading the climb and quietly whisper “please don’t fall”, because you know that if he does then you’re gone too.

On many occasions on some windy mountain ledge I deployed that wishful thinking device from my rucsac because you know that you won’t hold his fall.

Sevco and the SFA are roped into this together via the Five Way Agreement.

In the interest of transparency dear reader you’re not allowed to view this seminal document.

There are some in the non-Sevco camp that are getting rather exercised about the new club forfeiting their ‘licence’; actually the key word is membership.

Club licensing is something totally different.

The SFA granted a conditional membership to Sevco last summer.

They asked for certain guarantees and Charlie and the boys duly gave them.

I do believe that even if all of these promises and pledges have been broken then the SFA will find some way to keep A Rangers, ANY Rangers, in Scottish football.

Some people in the green half of Glasgow are getting exercised about this in a similar fashion to the title stripping frenzy (which I never took part in) before Lord Nimmo Smith reported.

I doubt that there will be any major sanction coming Sevco’s way from the SFA no matter what skulduggery is uncovered.

The last twelve months must have taught us all that there is a certain diplomatic immunity that goes along with having an office at the top of the marble staircase.

It is already well established that Charles Green and Craig Whyte were working in concert last summer to acquire the assets of Rangers (In Administration) from Duff & Phelps.

That in itself should have the SFA re-examining the Five Way Agreement.

In the midst of all the noise over the Sevco fiasco there is the silence from Hampden that is difficult to ignore.

In fairness the SFA did write to Charles Green last month (while he was Sevco CEO) and the last we heard was that the chaps on the sixth floor were seeking further clarification.

When Stewart Regan launched his 20 20 vision an SFL chairman who was in the audience said that he thought the Englishman was going to wear out the word “transparency”!

Yet what many in Scottish football are calling out for is just that.

When the Charles Green consortium received official permission from the SFA to take their Rangers into Scottish football the SFA must have received some assurances.

It is beyond my imagination that the SFA were so panicked by the idea of NO Rangers, ANY Rangers, in Scottish football that Charlie and the boys found themselves pushing an open door at Hampden.

No, that couldn’t have happened.

Moreover, the Sevco business plan looks increasingly shaky and conjures up the possibility of another insolvency event down Edmiston Drive.

This was clear to see last year and we shouldn’t be surprised when it happens.

I now have reason to believe from various well-placed sources that people in leadership positions in Scotland last summer genuinely feared the consequences for public order if Rangers as a brand disappeared completely.

Perhaps that slip of the tongue about “social unrest” from Stewart Regan wasn’t so fanciful.

Last summer although they failed to mobilise in sufficient numbers to save their club the klan did show that they were adept at intimidation.

However, this isn’t personal it is strictly business and the new club at Ibrox is in deep doo doo.

Even if it turns out that the Worthington Group have no shot at the assets that still doesn’t make Sevco financially viable.

The mainstream media bleat at every turn that all the ills of Scottish football would be saved if only people would ‘see sense and let Rangers back into the top flight’.

Firstly Rangers are dead although I understand why the hacks are locked into the official marketing fiction that the club that operated discriminatory signing policy for most of the 20th century has not passed on.

At this stage I am waiting for some hack to opine that the reason a pitch in Perth is water logged is that Sevco weren’t parachuted into the SPL.

In pretending that they are Rangers Sevco guaranteed their own insolvency event.

Their cost base can’t be met by the available revenues and add to that no bank  will give them a credit facility then it is game over.

At this stage probably only a “glib and shameless liar” would say that Sevco are saveable.

Only timescale is uncertain, outcome is not.

I hope you’re all paying attention because the script writers are on a roll with this one.

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