Not as bad as we think?

[gandhisflip 5]

Obviously there has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the last week since Walter bravely shone a spotlight on where the club is at. Hopefully by smoking out the bank in this way it brings potential investors to the table and makes it harder for the bank to push a fire sale in January which could set us back 3 or 4 years.

Now onto the positives as i see it. For a long time most Gers fans have realised that we needed a change at the top with fresh ideas, and a new impetus. Murray did some great things for us in his first 10-12years but the time is more than right for new people on board who are Rangers fans as well as businessmen in these more difficult times.

It appears from reading between the lines that Murray's hand is being forced and he needs to repay a large portion of the c.£700m debt owed to Lloyds/HBOS across his empire. It also appears that anyone buying Rangers will only have to stump up a negligible amount for Murray's shares in order to get the bulk of the debt repaid to Lloyds and MIH's debt reduced. This is good for a number of reasons:-

1. The price required to "buy" Rangers at the minute is probably only £20m or so when a while back it would have been £100m+. This allows more people into the frame and also means there should be some cash to invest sensibly (ie invest in 2 or 3 youngish players from upcoming markets that can be punted down south for a good profit as and when) when new owners arrive.

2. Fans respresentation and a share issue. The new owners if they have sense will look to launch a share issue to the fans at a suitable time and create a position on the board for a voted for fans representative. Fans didn't want to invest before as there was a feeling that Murray got us into the debt hole so he could get us out, and there was no clear business model in place as to how Rangers could/would be run. I think a share issue launched to the fans, with the right package and ideas in place would be well subscribed. I'm sure packets of say £2000 worth of shares but payable over 5-10yrs would be within the reach of many fans (£20-40/mth for that time frame).

3. Re-invigoration of many revenue streams within Ibrox - get merchandinsing back in-house (JJB are toiling and would accept a reasonable buy-out), make the catering and match-day experience more satisfying, and profitable, and owned again by Rangers, form closer reltaions with a new RST allowing for continued fan investment in the club (ideally we would maybe want to get to 30-40% fan ownership eventually).

4. Re-think the match day set-up at Ibrox. New pre-match and half time entertainment doing away with the terrible versions of old songs for something more modern, the cheerleaders for interviews with legends rather than just draws, showing old classic games/goals.

Anyway just some of the brighter prospects ahead assuming we can get the right kind of new owner in.