Grantly Group – insolvencies, dissolutions and breaches of the Companies Acts

[boss 1,941]

This article should give us all cause for concern. If this is the best the Rangers family can do, then we are in a very dark place.

Grantly Group – insolvencies, dissolutions and breaches of the Companies Acts

Written by Boss

Monday, 30 November 2009 15:00

As the leadership of the self-styled ‘only show in town’ flashes its poorly supported knickers at the latest haggard ho to swing into Govan, we at Rangers Media take a step back and ask a simple question: Graham Duffy, who he?

It has been widely reported that Mr Duffy was bankrupt at the turn of the millennium. That’s not something that should give us concerns per se; many very rich business folk have suffered the same indignity and bounced back. It’s probably as much to do with attitude to risk and the seeking of substantial reward that financially makes or breaks many a millionaire.

Perhaps of more concern is the myriad of companies in Duffy’s Grantly Group and what that reveals to us. Grantly Group Limited’s website lists a number of subsidiary companies in the UK and these are noted below. Grantly Group Limited itself submitted its latest Accounts to February 2008 which showed it as a dormant holding company.

http://home.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php/a...-companies-acts

[CanadianBacon 2,088]

I'll say it until I'm blue in the nasal area - this guy Duffy is one for watching, he has links to people who, to put it bluntly, Rangers Football Club would not want to be associated with in any way shape or form.

Still, if he's the "only show in town" then some had better start looking for other forms of entertainment.

(Cue RST defenders leaping off tall buildings)

[TannochsideBear 355]

Very interesting article Boss.

I had never heard of this guy up until a couple of weeks ago, and as I dont buy the papers, have mostly ignored the pathetic rumour stories started on an almost daily basis surrounding this Duffy guy.

Of course as he is, I believe, Florida based, it could be that his successful businesses are offshore and therefore not able to be found with a quick CH check. Let's hope so, as the list of dormant and left to rot Companies you list would inspire nobody, far less the bank.

[RFE 35]

Very interesting article Boss.

I had never heard of this guy up until a couple of weeks ago, and as I dont buy the papers, have mostly ignored the pathetic rumour stories started on an almost daily basis surrounding this Duffy guy.

Of course as he is, I believe, Florida based, it could be that his successful businesses are offshore and therefore not able to be found with a quick CH check. Let's hope so, as the list of dormant and left to rot Companies you list would inspire nobody, far less the bank.

Indeed it makes interesting reading, Rangers fans want to know what sort of person we're supposed to entrust with our club and our money. This does not make good reading.

People whose opinion's I respect are very wary of Graham Duffy's motive, I'm not convinced to say the least.

[CanadianBacon 2,088]

"The only show in town"??

Furfuxsake!!

[boss 1,941]

Very interesting article Boss.

I had never heard of this guy up until a couple of weeks ago, and as I dont buy the papers, have mostly ignored the pathetic rumour stories started on an almost daily basis surrounding this Duffy guy.

Of course as he is, I believe, Florida based, it could be that his successful businesses are offshore and therefore not able to be found with a quick CH check. Let's hope so, as the list of dormant and left to rot Companies you list would inspire nobody, far less the bank.

SDM is often accused of having a web of companies that no-one can follow (which is not actually true, some of us can!).

This Grantly Group's web of companies puts anything SDM has created not just in the shade, but out the ball park completely.

Only show in town? I'd rather stay in and watch Corrie then.

[Bluedell 14]

Interesting and concerning that he seems to pay no attention to the requirements of running a company, dormant or not.

Is Duffy a director of these companies?

[gandhisflip 5]

Very interesting article Boss.

I had never heard of this guy up until a couple of weeks ago, and as I dont buy the papers, have mostly ignored the pathetic rumour stories started on an almost daily basis surrounding this Duffy guy.

Of course as he is, I believe, Florida based, it could be that his successful businesses are offshore and therefore not able to be found with a quick CH check. Let's hope so, as the list of dormant and left to rot Companies you list would inspire nobody, far less the bank.

SDM is often accused of having a web of companies that no-one can follow (which is not actually true, some of us can!).

This Grantly Group's web of companies puts anything SDM has created not just in the shade, but out the ball park completely.

Only show in town? I'd rather stay in and watch Corrie then.

A good article and well researched. However surely the idea still stands that a membership/fan scheme is the way forward for the club. It just needs to be led by the right people, trusted by the fans.

Anyone waiting on a mysterious billionaire to buy the club and spend £20m of their own money each year to supplement our income will have a long wait.

[Jimenez 1]

How has he made his money then ?

Surely he has had success with properly regulated companies.

[nvager 498]

Time will tell, but for now I have no faith in Mr Duffy and his so called consortium.

[BRITNEY IS NOT FEELING IT 8,293]

A good bit of investigation into the way this guy DOES BUSINESS

Anyone with any business acumen,will stay well clear

WATP

[RFE 35]

How has he made his money then ?

Surely he has had success with properly regulated companies.

I think you're asking the million dollar question, how has he made his money? If it's not apparent, does that not concern you?

[opportunityknox 1]

Fantastic article Boss, and I'd suggest leaflets are made up and distributed at Ibrox, to educate people being misled about this character.

About Fan Ownership, caution is required, and it may not necassarily be the holy grail some think it is

Some interesting points here worth noting about the current fashion in certain quarters for Rangers to adopt fan ownership along the lines of "The Barca Model".

The author of the piece, Graham Hunter is a Scottish Journalist based in Spain, and knows what he's talking about.

-----------

Model of fan ownership is an alluring one

Fan ownership would tighten the link between Rangers and their supporters

Graham Hunter

Increasingly it seems it’s not enough that the whole world wants to play football like FC Barcelona – great numbers of fans apparently want to “own” their clubs and ape the structure that produced the reigning European champions.

Dr Rogan Taylor, with his Share Liverpool FC scheme aimed at 100,000 fans each investing in a share priced £5000 in order to buy the club back from its feuding American owners and run Liverpool independently, has thus far been the most articulate and organised agitator.

Now it seems that some feel this line of thinking offers an answer to Rangers’ currently brutal debt situation and a way forward from club decisions being taken by the bank.

So is it myth or is it magic, this one-man, one-vote ownership of what, currently, is the most feted club in the world?

Those who attempt to replicate the model need to keep in mind the maxim that all that glisters isn’t necessarily gold close to hand – but the members, or socios, at Barca wouldn’t have it any other way. Owning the club and making it do what Barca does are, however, two different things

Graham Hunter

Of course the most basic point of being a socio is that it’s the route to buying the most comprehensive season tickets and being assured of thrilling to the magic of Leo Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Zlatan Ibrahimovic up to three times a week – in the league, cup and Champions League.

But the reason that Barca’s membership structure is being lauded right now is that your socio status, something which currently costs €155 (£139), means that you part own and part control the club you love.

Under certain basic conditions – age, length of membership, clean record as a socio – you are able to vote for the president once every four years (soon to be every five), censure him, remove him in emergency situations, approve or denounce his actions at an AGM, stand for the board and – the big one – stand to be president yourself.

Of course, for the Camp Nou fighting fund the fact that around 172,000 socios pay that €155 every year means an influx of over €26m arrives before season tickets are even bought. Just having members earns Barca over €26m per anum.

For those who currently watch their club, say Rangers, saddled with debt, potentially being asset-stripped, potentially being owned by just any old entrepreneur who happens to have the cash – these socio benefits are the gold at the end of the rainbow.

One example is that the current Barca president, Joan Laporta, was no more than an ordinary member with a law practice and a deep love of Johan Cruyff just over 13 years ago.

Cruyff was brutally sacked in 1996 and within 12 months Laporta, backed by equally erudite and angry socios, decided to form a protest group called Elefant Blau (Blue Elephant) which agitated, protested, campaigned at two elections (failing) and then, from nowhere, stormed to win the 2003 presidency.

Albeit that Laporta is a remarkable, ambitious, well-connected man, the gestation period from him being an ordinary member to the beginning of a presidential reign which is, unquestionably, now the most glorious since its 1899 foundation, was six short years.

No wonder agitated, intelligent, committed fans view the Camp Nou structure as some sort of footballing nirvana. It’s worth pointing out, though, that Barca has become a brand name for this type of structure when, in fact, there are a number of other clubs around Europe run in the same way – notably Real Madrid.

Accountability is the realisable dream. The voting mass usually have a choice of presidents, the presidential candidates must lay a manifesto before the electorate, statutes can only be changed by majority vote and there are EGM structures which, in theory, should allow a properly constructed motion from the socio mass to pull the emergency brakes if either the football, economic or legal facets of the club run out of control

If the Laporta rise to power isn’t convincing enough then perhaps two instances at Madrid are.

Back in 2000 Lorenzo Sanz was president at the Bernabeu and his team had just won their second European Cup in the space of two years. Elections came around and there shouldn’t have been a greater shoo-in since Churchill stood for re-election, now at the head of the Tory party, after helping win World War II.

As with Winnie, the black dog was sitting on Sanz’s shoulder by the end of polling, though, because it turned out that the league football hadn’t been convincing enough, that the socios believed Sanz was cooking the books and that they were seduced by Florentino Perez’s claim that he could erase the then historical debt and build the world’s best team.

The socios spoke and, to coin a phrase, they were the people.

Then, last December, Ramon Calderon presented the books at the AGM fearing there were activists in the socio mass who were about to expose truths he would prefer to have kept hidden. Calderon effectively rigged the voting by allowing in socios who were not eligible to vote, changed the voting structure from counted ballots to a show of hands and allowed bully-boy tactics whereby his imported supporters shouted down and even threatened ordinary socios.

He was censured, hounded and forced to resign.

But even at Barca, sadly, all that glisters is not gold.

Despite the socio regime, Laporta inherited a club which was within a couple of months of not being able to pay staff salaries. And the presidential system is the same one which, for years, was mocked in the UK when coach after coach was sacked at Italian or Spanish clubs.

Back in Madrid, Florentino Perez went through five managers in the last two and a half years of his penultimate reign – socio nirvana?

During his current reign Laporta has dropped his trousers in anger at police security checks forced upon him in the middle of Barcelona airport, faced and won, by the narrowest of margins, a motion of censure which could have unseated him, seen nearly 20 board members walk out on him, made numerous political declarations which are felt to have furthered his career rather than the reputation of FC Barcelona, and been caught using a private detective firm to spy on his own board members. Socio nirvana?

Each club is “managing” debts which oscillate between €250m and €500m, debt being the very plague which is causing such damage to both Liverpool and Rangers right at the moment.

But not only are Madrid and Barcelona owned by their socios, they are massive, lucrative, aspirational brand names in the world of sport, something which neither Liverpool nor Rangers can match.

Fan ownership looks seductive and has enormous benefits in tightening rather than severing the umbilical link between clubs and those who support them but the reason Barca play such stunning football and sell their television rights for hundreds of millions of euros is that they produce astonishing players, serve up sensational soccer and are brilliantly coached.

Fan groups who want to buy Liverpool, Rangers or any other such footballing institution would do well to remember that owning the club and making it do what Barca currently does are two very different things.

[j1mgg 3,766]

Very interesting article Boss.

I had never heard of this guy up until a couple of weeks ago, and as I dont buy the papers, have mostly ignored the pathetic rumour stories started on an almost daily basis surrounding this Duffy guy.

Of course as he is, I believe, Florida based, it could be that his successful businesses are offshore and therefore not able to be found with a quick CH check. Let's hope so, as the list of dormant and left to rot Companies you list would inspire nobody, far less the bank.

SDM is often accused of having a web of companies that no-one can follow (which is not actually true, some of us can!).

This Grantly Group's web of companies puts anything SDM has created not just in the shade, but out the ball park completely.

Only show in town? I'd rather stay in and watch Corrie then.

A good article and well researched. However surely the idea still stands that a membership/fan scheme is the way forward for the club. It just needs to be led by the right people, trusted by the fans.

Anyone waiting on a mysterious billionaire to buy the club and spend £20m of their own money each year to supplement our income will have a long wait.

Do you expect the fans to pump £20m into the club each year?

This guy is sounding worse and worse. As posted in another thread he has a personnal wealth of £3m but has supposedly £116m tied up in property. I would like to know how tru this is and when the figures were taking from.

[Rambo1873 0]

Without saying to much as I am not 100% in the know but it will be more than just duffy taking over!

[damien1 29]

Cap doffed Boss, superb article.

[eastcoastbear 122]

I'll say it until I'm blue in the nasal area - this guy Duffy is one for watching, he has links to people who, to put it bluntly, Rangers Football Club would not want to be associated with in any way shape or form.Still, if he's the "only show in town" then some had better start looking for other forms of entertainment.

(Cue RST defenders leaping off tall buildings)

Not agreeing or disagreeing with you mate as you keep repeating it, but can you not enlighten us a bit?

[CanadianBacon 2,088]

I'll say it until I'm blue in the nasal area - this guy Duffy is one for watching, he has links to people who, to put it bluntly, Rangers Football Club would not want to be associated with in any way shape or form.Still, if he's the "only show in town" then some had better start looking for other forms of entertainment.

(Cue RST defenders leaping off tall buildings)

Not agreeing or disagreeing with you mate as you keep repeating it, but can you not enlighten us a bit?

I'd rather not go public with what I've been told - sorry!

[eastcoastbear 122]

I'll say it until I'm blue in the nasal area - this guy Duffy is one for watching, he has links to people who, to put it bluntly, Rangers Football Club would not want to be associated with in any way shape or form.Still, if he's the "only show in town" then some had better start looking for other forms of entertainment.

(Cue RST defenders leaping off tall buildings)

Not agreeing or disagreeing with you mate as you keep repeating it, but can you not enlighten us a bit?

I'd rather not go public with what I've been told - sorry!

Fair enough. Can see your fingernails being removed though!!

[j1mgg 3,766]

I'll say it until I'm blue in the nasal area - this guy Duffy is one for watching, he has links to people who, to put it bluntly, Rangers Football Club would not want to be associated with in any way shape or form.Still, if he's the "only show in town" then some had better start looking for other forms of entertainment.

(Cue RST defenders leaping off tall buildings)

Not agreeing or disagreeing with you mate as you keep repeating it, but can you not enlighten us a bit?

I'd rather not go public with what I've been told - sorry!

Fair enough. Can see your fingernails being removed though!!

SinnFein

[coolk 0]

Nice to know the facts so thanks for that but why feel the need to start off the article with a dig at the RST?

[Carsons Army 4,146]

Is this the guy the RST are urging us to back with our hard earned cash

[CanadianBacon 2,088]

Nice to know the facts so thanks for that but why feel the need to start off the article with a dig at the RST?

Fuck me............let it go.

[Jimenez 1]

Nice to know the facts so thanks for that but why feel the need to start off the article with a dig at the RST?

Fuck me............let it go.

would have been better not to put that in the article as far as I'm concerned, it has giving folk the ammunition to say Boss just holds a grudge. just my personal opinion.

[GeneralCartmanLee 313]

I think the use of this only show in town stuff deserves to be mocked, it's ridiculous they keep peddling that line about anything trust related. It's also a phrase used to belittle the assembly over the years, hardly in spirit of the apparent united front.