“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved… . For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time” We’ll start this off by stating this is not us having a dig at any of the Board; let’s get that out the way. Our concerns lie with whoever held responsibility for reviewing legal contracts and advised Messrs King and Murray to sign a contract with Sports Direct one year ago. Add to that the further legal advice subsequently given to the effect that RFC should go to court one year on to fight SD, knowing full well the contract was watertight and there were no grounds to challenge? It led to our capitulation prior to full proceedings and legal costs of over £500k being awarded against RFC. For clarity, the court document clearly states that the new contract allows SD both “infinite number of renewals” and “indefinite number of renewals”. This essentially means that SD have the right to be our Retail Partner with no end date or restriction as long as they match terms of any other offer. For those of you who state disinterest in the politics only what happens on the pitch unfortunately this is where both collide. Our revenue stream for merchandise clearly has an effect on the quality we can have on the pitch. We fans only want to get money flowing into the club and get our kids the strips their heroes wear. Time and again we’re prevented from doing so. We all want Steven Gerrard to succeed and provide him with as much financial backing as possible. At this stage we’re all aware our Chairman doesn’t have a warchest or the financial clout to provide one. The transfers are paid for by the fans and this constant failure centring around the merchandise must be resolved and those responsible sacked. Before anyone hits out with pish about how we won because we got the deal JD Sports offered (or whomever our unnamed new retail partner was going to be) let’s just quash that nonsense right now. We won nothing, we lost both the battle and the war here. Yes, we paid £3m to Sports Direct to end the onerous 7 year deal, of which 4 years were left to run. However, we’re now saddled with a deal that will last however long Sports Direct want. With that comes longer term implications. Which potential retail partner, in the future, would tender for a deal when they know Sports Direct will always have first refusal? Should someone wish to mount a takeover of the club, why would they do so when our retail partner is more or less guaranteed to be Sports Direct, thus limiting potential merchandise revenue streams? Regardless of new contract details, some fans simply won’t buy from Sports Direct. If no one else tenders to be our retail partner, Sports Direct sets the contract details on their terms. There’s no glory in being the benefactor of a contractual agreement for life, which has just happened to us by signing the deal one year ago and losing in court when we failed to comply with the terms. We’re now back in bed with SD, a company we fought for years to get off our back and which has so far cost us many millions to fight in legal battles. Add to that the £3m payout to end the contract, or to end the threat of personal action against RFC directors? That £3m was Rangers fans’ money. It was not paid by any director(s), it was our money. One year on, SD are still here and still very much in charge of our retail business. Polish this turd however many times you want. Use whatever deflection, smoke and mirrors or spin you please, the result is the same. We’ve been embarrassed by our inability to negotiate and agree contractual arrangements. Prior to Monday’s judgement, we witnessed the usual collection of spin merchants among our support on chatrooms or Twitter telling us the contract was normal and those inserted clauses were nothing unusual. Sports Direct wouldn’t exercise the matching option, we were told. The more intelligent sceptics among the fanbase saw the contract was limitless in length and provided an avenue for Sports Direct to cherry pick the money making aspects of retail. On Monday, after the details were announced, the same individuals were claiming victory that we’ve now got a contract by default. From where have we as a support developed this reluctance to criticise or accept blame? That is traditionally a trait we identify in the less successful conspiracy theorists across the city. Our legal advice has utterly fucked us here and someone must be held accountable. We will not put our heads above the parapet here and apportion blame to anyone in particular, quite simply because we don’t know who is responsible. All indications point to whoever provided the legal advice on this matter of contractual agreement. Also of huge concern are the penalties should we break this agreement. It would appear that the avenue for compensation is enough to destroy any company. We would even be liable for any drop in estimated footfall from Rangers fans visiting SD shops and lost sales on non-Rangers branded goods. This is without doubt the largest mess our club has made since the new custodians arrived and there have been many in that short timespan. Not only are we left with Mike Ashley and Sports Direct but their position has been further cemented by our failings. Without doubt, we were naive in thinking the club could successfully handle a matter of such massive scale. It is clear that the club was premature in releasing details of our new official merchandise and talk of a new retail partner. We can only hope in the coming days heads roll and guidance is provided. Changes have to be made as this proves beyond any reasonable doubt we possess neither the business ability to deal with such matters nor the personnel to do so. We at DLP Towers have talked for some time about our club’s penchant for employing individuals, not for the skills, the business nous or the football knowledge they possess but because they assisted the current board in gaining control. Every single previous “Fan Leader/Spokesman” now has a job at Rangers: James Blair as Club Secretary/Legal Representative, Chris Graham Club 1872, Greg Marshall SLO, Craig Houston Garrion Security Services (Stewarding). So for those of you wondering why previously vociferous “prominent” fans never utter a word against the board these days, quite simply it’s because they’re all employees. What better way of defending a football business from supporter attacks than to employ the main protagonists? Perhaps if we had employed individuals on merit we wouldn’t be in such a state in business terms? Club 1872 is run by a person paid for by the club, yet some fans still expect Club 1872 to challenge the board? Despite protestations late last year, Craig Houston won’t be donning the rat’s head again. Not because he doesn’t want to but because he’s now a paid employee of the company. It must be desperately sad for all the fans duped by these individuals. These people were never really interested in protecting the club or our history, they were simply looking out for themselves. Despite Craig saying, on filmed interview, he would never trust another Rangers board, it appears he wholeheartedly does so and quite happily takes the King’s shilling. Beware of false prophets and their followers because there are many amongst us. God Bless Our Team
Source: Davies Left Peg, Blog
Source: Davies Left Peg, Blog
