Craig Whyte is the owner of Rangers football club and he came into power after muscling his way to the top through an investment from a company called Ticketus. He managed to secure funding to purchase the club through a promise of the sale of 100,000 season tickets in the future.
His method of funding the purchase was kept a secret and many people thought that he had funded it with his own money, but once the story was broken by Record Sport he became a disgrace in the eyes of the fans.
Now the football club is in a financial crisis and it seems that they could be about to enter administration. Paul Murray has been working hard at finding a way to save the club and improve its financial situation but it has recently emerged that he has been working with an investment firm that the fans are not going to like.
It has emerged that Mr Murray has approached the parent company of Ticketus for funding that would enable the football club to stay out of administration. This has left many fans rather bewildered and they are unsure about why Mr Murray has made this decision. He has recently made the argument about why Octopus, the parent company, should be involved with the club and help it to stay in business.
It is expected that Mr Murray is going to meet with executives from Ticketus in the near future to discuss a rescue package for the club. The deal is also expected to involve the removal of Mr Whyte from ownership of the club.
The investment company is going to help the club deal with a significant amount of debt, which totals nearly £25 million. They are also going to provide some funding in order to keep the club running during the next few months. Once a financial recovery has occurred, there are going to be shares issued in the club which will allow the investment fund to get a return on their money.
It is going to be very hard for the fans to understand how their club is going to be saved by the very company that brought them to near financial ruin in the first place. There are sure to be significant trust issues about this company and the deal by Mr Murray is being doubted by many.
Mr Murray commented, “It is important that people remember that it is Mr Whyte who was responsible for many of the club’s financial problems, not Ticketus. They have offered us an agreement in good faith and I want fans to remember that they have helped us in the past.
They helped us get out of the debt we had to Lloyds bank and they also have significant experience in the industry. My primary concern is bringing the club out of its administration proceedings and I will take whatever steps necessary to make this happen.”
If the deal does go ahead, the football club is going to have a significant debt to repay. The club has struggled with debt payments in the past and last year they failed to repay around £10 million to a lender.
Mr Murray continued, “The club does not need to be involved in any sort of legal complication right now. We need to move forward with this financial planning, so that the best interests of the football club can be preserved. We are currently looking at our projections of future cash flow and we are ironing out the main details of the deal.
“I have come forward about how I am getting this funding because I believe secrecy has got the club into trouble in the past. Mr Whyte taught us that secrecy is suspicious and I don’t want to run the club in this way. If I find a better option, I’ll take it, but this is the only choice we have right now.”