Zappa

The papers have had a field day with an informal pay cut suggestion, so does it really matter that he tried to keep it low key? Oh aye, speaking of which keeping it low key didn't work out too great did it? Seriously though, it's turned out to be an embarrassing failure for Wallace and I think he could and should have done much better.

Wipeout Dunny. The glass display cabinets are the bollocks.

I wouldn't have as big a problem with it if it was Ally and Jig getting asked to go and speak to the players about taking a wage cut, but it was just Jig. The problem with that is that Jig isn't their gaffer, so it's a very weak and slightly pathetic approach to take with the players. Just sounding them out or not, Wallace should have done it in person, face to face with the players and probably with Ally at his side. The result speaks for itself, but perhaps if the CEO had spoken to them in person the result would have been more positive.

Spot on and it's worrying because Ally is possibly deliberately letting some opinions slip out, that he might not do if he wasn't worried himself.

I think that would be the prudent thing to do, but I don't think Ally is particularly prudent when it comes to interviews.

He's well compensated, but you really have to feel for Ally because no other manager in the history of our club has had to deal with administration and all of the subsequent non-football questions from the press and media. He's been put in more awkward positions than a 2 bit whore and it's not funny at all. It's not easy to get your head around it either because at times you're thinking he says too much in interviews, but at other times you're wishing he would just spill the beans and be brutally honest about what he thinks has been going on, but he clearly can't do that.

D'Artagnan and the other guys leading the way with that stuff are doing a grand job and are highly knowledgable on the subject. For me though, the wrongs being done at our own club are more important than any wrongs being done elsewhere and I think it's really positive to see guys like Carson's cat asking tough questions on here and taking a power of abuse for it. Not that him taking a power of abuse from fellow fans is positive, but having the balls to ask tough questions knowing he will get abuse shows a strength of character. Not all of us like to sweep sweep like they do over in the east end.

Exactly and from what we know, this is exactly the subject (unofficial kick-backs to initial investors) which was put to the SFO.

Well, Graham Wallace better get his finger out because he's been here for two whole months (minus his two week holiday) and not actually done very much by the looks of things. He's supposed to be cutting costs at the Club and so far it looks as if he's actually only increased them by hiring this guy Nash as a consultant. We can't exactly count the wage cut Ally took as a Wallace triumph when it was agreed long before he was employed as the new CEO. Instead of getting the directors and senior staff at the top of the Club to first agree to wage cuts and put him in a position of power for speaking to other staff and the players about wage cuts, it appears as though he's just been fannying about. He didn't even have the bollocks or common sense to go and speak to the players in person about wage cuts, so it's hardly surprising they'd say no.

For anyone interested, here's what our ex-CEO Craig Mather had to say about the IPO costs immediately after the accounts were released -

I'm sure very few of us would argue with you on that front. The bickering is tiresome and I'd wager that it's taken it's toll quite heavily on a lot of Bears. Hopefully once the Club is eventually out of troubled waters we can stop talking about all the shitty stuff.

minstral, I always respect your opinion on here, but in all seriousness, we've heard a hell of a lot more moonbeams in the past two years than we heard from David Murray in 20 years.

It's a very tired expression indeed gogzy, but if I'm to be told I'm a handwringer myself, then I think it's only fair to express my view on the use of the word in the context of our support.

The real handwringers in our fanbase are the Ostrich Loyal who'd rather stick their head in the sand than believe what's staring them in the face; the people who will blindly (because their head is either in sand or up their arse) support and back conmen and liars like Whyte, Green and the next cunt to come along and feed them a pile of lies and moonbeams.

There's no other explanation whatsoever, especially when you consider that it's these types of kickbacks which were allegedly reported to the Serious Fraud Office because such activity isn't legal. It also perfectly explains why such a large chunk of the 6 million in IPO 'costs' have never been properly explained, accounted for or itemised. Craig Mather is another one who let the cat out of the bag on this one because he was questioned about the IPO costs in an interview after the accounts were released and he basically couldn't specifically account for about 4 million out of the 6 million in costs. He just came out with some generic bullshit phrase about one-off costs and when asked for more details about what those one-off costs were exactly, he bottled it and said he'd need to defer that question to Stockbridge, but as far as I know it's never been explained. Bottom line is that most of that 4 million was probably kicked back to the original investors just as you're suggesting and only about 2 million (just under 2m IIRC) was genuine costs for the IPO.

I'd go much further. Suspend all of the employee expense accounts that get used to run up tabs for lunches, dinners etc. Suspend all free food and drink for Club staff, including players unless it's in someone's contract. Basically just suspend all perks and freebies throughout the whole club unless it's stuff which people are contractually entitled to.

In fairness to the OP, it does indeed seem as though Hart made a woopsy and let something slip which he shouldn't have. Keep asking the tough questions and looking for answers Carson's cat. Maybe we'll get to the bottom of everything the dodgy conmen and liars have been up to eventually.

The idea that anyone would be willing to give the Easdales £80m to £100m for McGill's is total and utter fantasy. Toxic Jack and mad McMuddo think we all zip up the back. At one point they were telling us the Easdales are actually worth £100m, then they're telling us Blue Pitch are minted and are gonna plough £50m into Rangers. We'd be better off if all these bullshitting liars just fucked off and left us in peace!

This pish about Green saving the club cracks me up. In all seriousness, I would actually give the guy some credit for that if he had gotten us out of administration via a successful CVA, but in true spiv bastard fashion, he actually got the club and assets for peanuts in a 'binding agreement' (aka dodgy deal) with the shady pricks from Duff & Phelps. The CVA drawn up by Green & Duff and Phelps was designed to fail, so it's no surprise it failed and yet folk want to thank Green for that? As for our silverware, Green didn't give a flying fuck about that, all he cared about was making his dosh and fucking off with his pockets bulging at the earliest opportunity, which is exactly what he did, so in that capacity he was successful.

I've heard the 10k p/w rumours and it sounds about right, but the bottom line is that salaries like that are obscene for a club in our situation for ANY player, never mind a player who's aproaching 36.

Can't say I agree with every sentence, but it's a good blog post and I agree with most of his main points.

That's a great point about Jig. I don't know what he's earning from the Club at the moment, but it won't be peanuts. As you say, tough decisions need to be made and with Jig due to turn 36 in a few months it's difficult to fathom the logic in keeping him. No offence to Jig because he's been a great servent and performed well beyond a lot of fans' expectations, but it's not a jobs for the boys club or Scottish football retirement home the Club is running and Jig is no Davie Weir in terms of his defensive capabilities.

Nothing would surprise me these days. A lot fans trusted Green even while he was clearly talking mountains of complete and utter shite almost every time he opened his cake hole.

Not sure if it was that far back. I seem to remember something about him leaving last year, but strangely enough, most of the football sites still have him down as a Rangers player.

Good point. Not sure about that.