The appalling vista for Sevco comes dripping slowly.
It was a feature of the Rangers story that, for whatever reason, the mainstream media in Scotland, especially the sports desks didn’t want to see what was clear to others.
As I reminded my Twitter clan yesterday George Orwell considered that his craft to be essentially subversive in nature:
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations”.
The Glasgow hack pack rather forgot this bit of wisdom, because the narrative they peddled about Rangers back in the day was truly Orwellian.
This year the media tied themselves in knots over the league reconstruction flying circus because they couldn’t openly state what the real objective of their editorialising was.
Thankfully Sevco remain where they should be as a new club and their position in the pecking order of Scottish football is based upon sporting merit.
The elephant in the room is that this is a loss making business with no credit line from a bank and this was observable last year by some of us.
Subsequently, it is surviving on cash reserves that Sevco claim to have been £22.5 million late last year.
I have noticed a reticence on the part of the Scottish mainstream to go after the Sevco cash flow story.
As predicted by me last May a redundancy programme is now under way at Sevco.
Of course it won’t be called that, but people will still lose their jobs and that is to be regretted.
Once again the mainstream media in Glasgow should be all over this.
Despite austerity or insolvency being the only long term options open to Sevco the new Ibrox outfit seems to me to indulge in unnecessary spending.
Hotels are a case in point.
Richard Foster is currently being put up in probably the most expensive hotel in Glasgow.
I will not name the establishment as I don’t want the place thronged by his adoring fans.
However, I understand that over the past two weeks the bill for his residence has reached over £2,000.
Craig Mather is also something of a fixture there these days.
Malcolm Murray has also graced this establishment with his presence.
A bed at this place doesn’t come cheap dear reader.
Now perhaps some might think that the Sevco officer corps should be in a Travel Lodge, but they couldn’t have found a more expensive place in Glasgow to stay if they tried.
Even Sevco’s new investor Kieron Prior has noted the generosity of the remuneration packages that the top chaps at the new club are giving themselves.
Incidentally the same elegantly understated hotel was stiffed by Craig Whyte for £2,400 back in the day when he was the owner of Rangers.
They did chase him for the bill, but in the end they gave up.
Now there seems to a convivial relationship with this fine establishment in the west end and Sevco.
Clearly they think they’re dealing with a new club.
Everything about the current Sevco operation says that this is a short term project for the people currently in charge.
Anyone with penny shares in the new club will want the lights kept on until early next year.
After that then if they can find a buyer for their shareholding in RIFC then they stand to make a substantial profit.
Therefore the people currently in charge of Sevco aren’t probably there for the long haul.
It is this scenario that the mainstream media in Scotland should be examining.
Instead it is puff pieces about new players and a shiny new bus.
In fairness if someone in the omnibus business offers your omnishambles a free coach and driver then you’re unlikely to turn him down.
Precisely what Mr Bruce gets out of giving Sevco the use of a bus worth £500,000 and the services of a professional driver for free is one for him to answer.
Last September he was in a bidding war with Parks of Hamilton for the honour of supplying the new team bus to the new club.
When his price went to zero the Hamilton chaps left the stage and Charlie Green put out his big Yorkshire hands to accept this freebie on wheels.
None of this can deflect from the fact that the Holding Club that is burning money and it doesn’t have access to a credit line from a bank.
Yet mainstream media coverage of Sevco this summer could have been written by Pollyanna.
Clearly many of the succulent hacks want to play the Glad Game and start running with an ‘everything is wonderful again’ narrative apropos Sevco.
The only thing missing on the back pages is a huge graphic of a casino and a hovering pitch.
Plus ça change…
Therefore Michael Grant deserves praise for this tentative step into what is largely terra incognita for the mainstream.
Sevco cash flow is not a place they go to very often.
The customers of the new holding club are, of course, craving good news stories out of Ibrox.
They need to believe and that makes them rather vulnerable to finding themselves ensconced in a padded seat on the gullible bus.
Of course it is often better to journey in hope than to arrive.
However, just as with Rangers, the financial realities of Sevco can only be kicked down the road for so long.
The inconvenient truth is that, with current revenue streams, even the most savage austerity programme may not save Sevco from an insolvency event.
Despite all that has unfolded down Edmiston Drive way over the past two years I know these words will be largely disbelieved by the Dignified Tendency on Planet Fitba.
The gullibility of The People has me struggling to suppress feelings of pity for them.
