The current Prince of Sevco is faced with some very difficult choices this week.
However, it would be wrong to think that Pedro is entirely the author of his own misfortunes.
Others wrote a narrative that now frames his apparent failure.
For ’tis the sport to have the engineer. Hoist with his own petard
Although this week could blow up in his face he did not construct the device.
The high-Level narrative during the close season was that the Sevco High Command had bankrolled Pedro to an unprecedented degree.
The sum of £9m was blithely thrown around by various dignified pundits and trusted stenographers.
Regular readers will be aware that your humble correspondent demurred on this figure.
Quite frankly, Sevco did not spend anything like that amount in the summer.
However, the higher salaries being paid to the new guys were real enough and that remains a clear and present danger to the cash flow.
Even Celtic’s Brendan Rodgers recently made reference to the vast sums that Pedro had putatively spent in the close season.
This was one of this rare occasions when the Antrim man was wrong on a football matter.
Mark that one in your diary dear reader…
When football managers are under pressure to deliver results they can sometimes exhibit stubborn tunnel vision and block out all advice.
However, they can sometimes take on too much counsel and then be rendered hopelessly indecisive, just like Shakespeare’s Scandinavian ruler.
There was a time at Ibrox when the Prince of Denmark meant Brian Laudrup.
However, that was then and Rangers are in the same place as poor Yorick.
I always thought that the self-destruction of the Ibrox club had a rather Shakespearean flavour to it.
For the avoidance of doubt, it tastes like jelly and ice cream!
There is indeed something rotten in the state of Sevco.
The possibility of the cold shoulder on Mr David Cunningham King hasn’t gone away you know.
Moreover, the next phase is enforcement.
Therefore, any mention of further appeals is utter nonsense.
That could spread a contagion to all those involved with the Holding Company vehicle.
No one could accuse the South African based convicted criminal of indecision.
His default setting is too tough it out and the hell with the consequences.
His fellow directors, based in the UK, cannot afford his level of sanguinity on the matter.
As with Scandinavian intrigue in football matters, it is important to have strategic alliances.
I learned last night that my Maroon buddies should not expect too much from Ms Budge on the matter of the EBT cheating.
For the avoidance of doubt, that scam cost Hearts millions in prize money over that shabby decade.
She should stand up for her club, but I fear that she will come through for Sevco on this one.
Indeed, you could say that she is their star in the east.
Of course, none of this will help Prince Pedro in the week that’s in it.
If he fails in the next two fixtures then the usual suspects in the radar press will be given their high-Level instructions.
These intrepid members of the Fitba Fourth Estate will heroically point out to their dwindling readership that the Portuguese chap was given millions to build a team to challenge Celtic.
It is worth recalling that the chap who pays the PR invoices did not have any hand, act or part in selecting the ex-Al-Gharafa supremo.
Incidentally, Mr King never tires of reminding his Blue Room colleagues of that fact!
You see, it is never Dave’s fault.
However, Senhor Pedro Miguel Faria Caixinha will be to blame for all of the misfortunes that might befall The People over the next two matches.
If I was him I wouldn’t know what to do next…
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When is BDO going to finally LIQUIDATE Rangers Football Club? And pay the Creditors the cash it holds?
After five years the DEAD Club needs to be buried.
Looks as if a minimum of 6 players will get the opportunity to line up against the Champions for the first time on Saturday.
A sending off is a certainty and if Pedro hasn’t learned anything from the mauling in April then a similar score is on the cards.
An 8 point gap even at this stage of the season is huge considering only 8 points were dropped in the whole of last seasons campaign.
Bring it on.
Hearts scams ?
How about the fake loan deals from his other club Kaunas FC and the £1.5 million tax bill agreed with hmrc none of it paid.
Or Skacel’s special deal with Vlad, half his wages tax free from Hearts parent company in Lithuania not recorded on his playing contract.
Heats were every bit as corrupt as RFC.
Sorry , meant to go as reply to Dougie’s post.
Write to the SFA compliance officer.
Hearts are legally the same club, unlike Rangers and Sevco, as Rangers were liquidated.
The Advertising Standards Authority decision to represent The Rangers FC as the same club as defunct Rangers FC, was predicated upon the Lord Nimmo-Smith Report being submitted to the ASA as evidence.
Given the LNS Report was seriously flawed and is now rendered pulp fiction by the Supreme Court ruling, the ASA decision is untenable.
“Get thee to a Hunnery!”
Actually, perhaps not….
You mention hearts owner budge amd not to expect anything from them is this due to a recent visit Mrs budge had to bute house to meeting first minister of Scotland
Excellent read, to continue the Bard references……By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes. Apt for the days ahead.
:-D-Day for Pedro today.
I find myself supporting sevco against Partick ( the oldest professional team in Glasgow )…..the reason…I just dont want Pedro to go 😀
P.S. It’s also nice to see a team with so many catholic players doing well 😉
Phil ,your surely having a leg pull thinking that Brendan believed that gash …
When is this bloody ‘cold shoulder’ arriving? The next ice age will be here first. Pffft. ?
The Numbers thrown around by sevco on the player front serve a couple of purposes.
1, £3.5 million for Pena in the hope some dafty comes in with £4 million.. Fantasy land.
2, The soft loans need to see a return at some point. Dave’s supposed £5 million from hong kong’s Barry ‘Cillit Bang’ Scott and some other guy cough cough, needs to be repaid somehow. Keep a close eye on the books Phil.
Daily Radar had a host of top flight English premier league teams jostling for the signature of Alfredo Morellos yesterday.
I wonder how much would be enough to prise the Rangers* “goal machine” (who failed to find the net last night against Partick) away from Ibrox??
The only silver lining for sevco will be they have a Catholic to blame when it all goes tits up, that at least should keep the PeePole distracted and just like Shaggy Dave shrugs and says “It wasn’t Me” If Mr DCK happens to be a member of any secret society my money’s on the Magic Circle after all we’ve seen Rabbits from the Magic Hat and wach carefully for a masterful bit of misdirection heading the spectrographers way
You will I hope enjoy this slice of apt pedantry.
“Hoist with your own petard” means “being blown skywards by your own fart”! ?
If there was an Olympic event in Petard Hoisting the Huns (both dead & reconstituted) would have about 55 titles by now…
A BBC Scotland report, fronted by Chris McLaughlin, gave a wee sum, back of a fag packet, account of Rangers’ largesse over the summer. Surely no one is suggesting that the BBC sports coverage is deeply tainted twaddle skewed to appease?
It is surely the case that Caixinha is being set up to carry the can. Like many football fans, I have a great deal of sympathy for folk parachuted in (metaphorically speaking, of course) to mop up a mess like the one at Ibrokes. That includes the Undisclosed.
I find it somewhere between laughable and stomach churning how the ibrox-banned BBC continue to bend over backwards to make out this current incarnation are somehow relevant, like a spurned lover trying to woo back their beloved. Can’t remember which mouthpiece it was that was allocated web space to lament the disparity in treatment between Brendan and El Ped; how soon (and convenient) they forget how Warburton and his magic hat was lauded as the saviour of Scottish football, with his rolodex of contacts and access to the cream of loanees from across the globe. Or was it Brentford?
Note also how Scott Brown “escaped punishment for an incident in which he appeared to flick out his foot” at an opponents face yet it is a case of no case against Windass for his “gesture”. No real surprise there, I mean if Kiernan can escape punishment for being caught on camera physically assaulting another player then what chance has a mere gesture got? Unless made by one NF Lennon, of course. As for Broony, there was no incident therefore no punishment to be escaped from but well done BBC for the effort all the same.
Pedro need not fear, the word is that they have collected all the spiders from the darkest recesses of the badgers den and will be placing them around the goals and penalty spot . What a strategy, bound to be a winner, well known fact that those coloured fellows don’t like spiders, especially ones who are French and wear green and white…Talking about Green & Whyte, not much being said on that front…
It’s quite a coordinated effort and good to see the lads of the press don’t need much guidance. It’s not just in the prices paid. The Sunday Times had the income from McKay, Waghorn and Garner at £2.95million! If McKay was £500k that means Ipswich, allegedly, paid £2.4 for both strikers yet price quoted was nearer £300k for each.
Dave King has been the Supremo at The Rangers FC/ RIFC PLC for five months short of three years.
If it’s in dire straits on and off the field, it all rests in his lap. The sport of blaming managers at Ibrox needs to be refocused to blaming the club owner, as he describes himself.
Star in east you say? Quelle surpris.
Don’t think Breandan was wrong. He knows they didn’t spend millions but he also knows how to use their summer message to his advantage. He was reminding them there are no excuses any more.
In a previous life I worked in Edinburgh. So many Eastern women it was like a song…
Starry, starry night…
RIP Paul Wilson.
Agreed, ynwa paul
Prince Dave marshal’s Them to knavery.
I wonder who would be appointed as administrators should this entity go to the wall.
Will the “holding company”cut the loan cord to the “club” and liquidate it to try another debt free phoenix like creation of another “club”.
3rds a charm.
That trick won’t work again because there’s no easy money of any description to be made to attract a seasoned asset-stripping showman and charming storyteller-to-the-gullible such as The Talented Mr Green.
Remember that The Talented Mr Green somehow extracted £17m from City institutions for his IPO, plus about a quarter of that amount from fans and RRM. Let’s assume the City guys won’t be back for another high return investment.
The only routes forward for RIFC/TRFC is to create a sustainable business that can balance the books or be forced to call in the administrators – followed quickly by the liquidators.
Since Rangers in all its forms, has not balanced the books in 30 years, some might argue that the latter is the only route forward.
How often can you “asset strip” the same assets?
Yorick………love it. Btw when I typed in “yorick” first time the spell check changed it to “tick”. Lol
So is Ann Budge a sister to the Brothers ? Do they share a house or is she just a lodger
Taken at face value, you’re right to say that Brendan was wrong to say that the Ibrox entity had outspent Celtic. But the man from Antrim can do no wrong in my eyes and I prefer to think that his tongue was firmly in his cheek when he told the media that, safe in the knowledge that they couldn’t correct him since it was the media who dutifully parroted those fanciful transfer fees in the first place ?
That’s exactly what I thought. No way our Brendan would believe the Scottish medias figures
Yeah, I think BR was at the wind-up with those comments too. I think it’s called hanging them with their own rope.
I think Brendan was inadvertently stating that his side has not been solely about money. The backbone of the side is academy and Scottish based, coached correctly. Our dominance in the National Team is testimony to that, and the improvement therein. It is relevant that he should remind those with their underlying cynicism, who question the merit of our superiority.
eldiplomato – surely the SFA can allow South American players into the national squad to help out an old friend in need – after all – rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools – what about “imperfectly Scottish” or “associate Scottish nationality”. When McPena does his stuff on the world stage in dark blue, EPL clubs will be queeing around Ibrox up to buy him for 9 digit fees.
Absolutely.top trolling from Brendan.
I have a full list of the fees paid by Rangers over the summer:
1) Undisclosed
2) Undisclosed
3) Undisclosed
4) Undisclosed
5) Undisclosed
6) £0.00
7) Undisclosed
8) Undisclosed
9) Undisclosed
10) Undisclosed
11) F**k all.
There you have it a grand total of £Undisclosed.
I wonder why
Masonic thing they like secrets
winky eye thing
Brendan was indeed wrong regarding the summer “war chest” at Rangers*.
Personally, I like to think that he knew he was and was enjoying a bit o’ craic at their expense.
Any timescale for the “cold shoulder ” becoming a reality Phil ? Keep up the pressure.
I’m sure BR know the rangers are lying about outspending Celtic. But using another’s lie to check mate an opponent is so sweet, like jelly and ice-cream.
Ms Budge’s position is probably more about not wanting her own clubs historical financial affairs raked over than anything else.
I know you are strangely reticent on the Hearts scams and the cup won during that period, and even less bothered about the Lithuanian pensioners who ultimately paid for Hearts gambles right back to the days of Robinson the pie man, so you have to assume Ms Budge would rather you and your colleagues remain fixated on the West!
Agree 100 %.
Hearts “scams”? Such as?
It’s true Romanov was reckless in his financial running of the club (and just plain foolish in other aspects) but his money was real enough. The existence of HMFC was always going to be jeopardised if the financial lifeline to Romanov’s bank was ended and the banking meltdown of 2008 did just that.
The collapse of of Romanov’s financial empire undoubtedly caused pain to a lot of creditors but to describe these events as a “scam” is a dubious claim.
And Chris Robinson? You’ll have to explain that one.