Should Craig Whyte have Mortgaged off 5 years of ST's?

[Jack The Flipper 5,936]

I said yes because Mr Whyte thinks we needed to . End of story. He`s the Boss and he is the one who will live or die by his decisions . No one on this forum will know how to save Rangers better than the Board we have at Rangers. Let them do their Jobs till the end. We can all Judge at the end but not before he has finished. He has hardly started.

Murray got 20+ years before he got judged.

How can you be sure of the business agenda of whyte?

Your own logic is going against you. You claim not to know enough to class what Whyte is doing as correct or incorrect for us, then show him support when you know absolutely nothing with regard to what he really wants to do with us. He has told us - the fans - the most important part of this great club a string of lies to fit his own agenda - whatever that may be.

Keep your eyes open, it might take the rangers fans with full sight to save our great club in its current state from extinction. Blind support can be just as dangerous as continually questioning decisions - if not more dangerous.

What is important is to be clued up with regard to the situation instead of what you're doing just now - dismissing evidence. We may have to act, and if we do we need all Rangers supporters at the ready.

This is the only way we will truly be guaranteed survival.

[SinkyRFC 3]

wasnt this season ticket thing done before whyte became owner?

[californiadreamin52 339]

This smells of assest stripping

[TBO 1]

What I want to know is what were they mortgaged against and what happened to the money?

[Redmond7 1,539]

It depends what happens to that money, and what plans are in place for future revenue. It's like when people take out these short terms loans to cover them till payday, but when payday comes they have to pay back that loan plus the interest so then how do they cope with that shortfall and so on. As we have no idea what has happened to this alleged £24m or whatever, it is hard to comment for sure and what do we do for the next few years with no season ticket money and indeed having to pay interest on that? So until he actually comes out and tells us whats going on, we can't know.

[Jack The Flipper 5,936]

wasnt this season ticket thing done before whyte became owner?

Only in the short-term eg within the accounting period. Therefore it was only used to suppliment cash flow when needed to increase liquidity. This is deferent however, this is over years and not months & it will be represented in the financial statements as another long-term liability. There is a big difference between increasing liquidity during the year and injecting future year's income into the current accounting period in order to balance the books - while all the time our team is not being refreshed.

[Figo 91]

i dont know how to run a football club do u ?

I took rangers to the champions league semis in FM2011 and it cost me £5.99 more to buy rangers on my phone than it cost Whyte to buy it in real life.

Does that count?

[PaulRFC1 115]

Isn't it quite simple?

No would mean the club dying and yes would be saving us.

And did Whyte come out and admit he used 4 years worth of ST money? or was that just the same rhag who said he used that money to fund his buyout of the club?

"What is true is that Rangers, like many other clubs, has a financing arrangement in place with a company called Ticketus which enables the Club to receive revenue from a portion of season ticket sales in advance."

We needed extra revenue from somewhere and that loan from Ticketus will put us on a safe footing.

We do not know what is happening but it is pretty obvious he has a plan to save us, that money could be for the tax case to help with that or it could be to plug the gap in the operating costs.

We do not know the deal with Ticketus either, remember when we were in debt to Lloyds and the rhags constantly said they are going to pull the plug on us but in reality we had an arrangement with them to pay 1 million of the debt a year?

Its because of who it is, Craig Whyte is using the same scheme as the old regime yet he is getting hounded in the rhags with complete lies. Why did none of this come out when Murray was in charge and Murray was using the exact same scheme?

Craig Whyte is the man thats trying to save us whether you trust him or whether you like it. Why dont you give him a bit of support the way he has done with the fans. On here we were dying for someone to come out against the medias constant attack on the club and he has done it, give him support for the task he has at hand and put faith in him to save this club.

Point your finger at the old regime, we are fucked because of them and them only.

[Weird_Beard 99]

What I want to know is what were they mortgaged against

Where have you been,

[Weird_Beard 99]

Isn't it quite simple?

No would mean the club dying and yes would be saving us.

And did Whyte come out and admit he used 4 years worth of ST money? or was that just the same rhag who said he used that money to fund his buyout of the club?

"What is true is that Rangers, like many other clubs, has a financing arrangement in place with a company called Ticketus which enables the Club to receive revenue from a portion of season ticket sales in advance."

We needed extra revenue from somewhere and that loan from Ticketus will put us on a safe footing.

We do not know what is happening but it is pretty obvious he has a plan to save us, that money could be for the tax case to help with that or it could be to plug the gap in the operating costs.

We do not know the deal with Ticketus either, remember when we were in debt to Lloyds and the rhags constantly said they are going to pull the plug on us but in reality we had an arrangement with them to pay 1 million of the debt a year?

Its because of who it is, Craig Whyte is using the same scheme as the old regime yet he is getting hounded in the rhags with complete lies. Why did none of this come out when Murray was in charge and Murray was using the exact same scheme?

Craig Whyte is the man thats trying to save us whether you trust him or whether you like it. Why dont you give him a bit of support the way he has done with the fans. On here we were dying for someone to come out against the medias constant attack on the club and he has done it, give him support for the task he has at hand and put faith in him to save this club.

Point your finger at the old regime, we are fucked because of them and them only.

Look let me put one thing straight first. I'm not a Craig Whyte loather and I know you didn't exactly say that but I'm just putting it out there.

However I don't think it is as simple as that. No, would more than likely mean the club dying, yes, I give you that. Yes, on the other hand could also mean the club dying but only a slower death. When we say dying, we're obviously talking administration.

Whyte did come out and 'finally' admit, after 2 denials, that he mortgaged the season ticket money. He said it was not used for buying the club which, even after he lied to us, for some reason I still believe.

The agreement was in place before Whyte tookover, but it was purely for short term loans that was never written up as a liability and at the end of the day, tax case or no tax case, that loan only bumps our debt up an extra 24.4m plus interest. So I won't be regarding that as putting us on a safe footing.

I understand he's the man in charge and our only hope but I would like some transparency from him on exactly what this money was for.

Our money, the fans money. Football is meant to be for the fans, is it not?

[PaulRFC1 115]

Look let me put one thing straight first. I'm not a Craig Whyte loather and I know you didn't exactly say that but I'm just putting it out there.

However I don't think it is as simple as that. No, would more than likely mean the club dying, yes, I give you that. Yes, on the other hand could also mean the club dying but only a slower death. When we say dying, we're obviously talking administration.

Whyte did come out and 'finally' admit, after 2 denials, that he mortgaged the season ticket money. He said it was not used for buying the club which, even after he lied to us, for some reason I still believe.

The agreement was in place before Whyte tookover, but it was purely for short term loans that was never written up as a liability and at the end of the day, tax case or no tax case, that loan only bumps our debt up an extra 24.4m plus interest. So I won't be regarding that as putting us on a safe footing.

I understand he's the man in charge and our only hope but I would like some transparency from him on exactly what this money was for.

Our money, the fans money. Football is meant to be for the fans, is it not?

I have never heard of him denying mortgaging the season ticket money?

I don't know the ins and outs of the deal when the old regime were using it, all I know was that they introduced the scheme.

And people keep hitting out with figures, he hasn't stated how much he used or what the agreement in place is. I for one don't believe the Daily Rebel one bit.

I would like some transparecy from him too.

[BritishBear 34]

I don't know how much money Whyte has. Don't really think anyone other than Whyte himself knows.

One thing though is becoming clearer, Whyte isn't putting any of his own money into the club, or if he has, it's out now and back in his pocket thanks to ticketus.

There is a reported £10 million shortfall, why then does he need £24 million, why did he need most of the Jelavic money up front and where is all this money going.

The way money is being generated leads me to believe that Whyte knows the tax case is lost and he is making sure that he gets his money first. This could have been the plan all along because there were no surprises for Whyte, look how long it took him to buy the club, it was his team that found the unpaid tax bill.

[Weird_Beard 99]

I have never heard of him denying mortgaging the season ticket money?

I don't know the ins and outs of the deal when the old regime were using it, all I know was that they introduced the scheme.

And people keep hitting out with figures, he hasn't stated how much he used or what the agreement in place is. I for one don't believe the Daily Rebel one bit.

I would like some transparecy from him too.

It's not the paper you don't believe then. It's Paul King you don't believe. The paper was just a vehicle for his story.

[Weird_Beard 99]

I don't know how much money Whyte has. Don't really think anyone other than Whyte himself knows.

One thing though is becoming clearer, Whyte isn't putting any of his own money into the club, or if he has, it's out now and back in his pocket thanks to ticketus.

There is a reported £10 million shortfall, why then does he need £24 million, why did he need most of the Jelavic money up front and where is all this money going.

The way money is being generated leads me to believe that Whyte knows the tax case is lost and he is making sure that he gets his money first. This could have been the plan all along because there were no surprises for Whyte, look how long it took him to buy the club, it was his team that found the unpaid tax bill.

He's still never denied, as far as I'm aware, that Murray will not be culpable for the tax bill or parts of it. He's always said there was a plan for the worst case scenario in place. So you never know.

[waspie3 1]

It depends what happens to that money, and what plans are in place for future revenue. It's like when people take out these short terms loans to cover them till payday, but when payday comes they have to pay back that loan plus the interest so then how do they cope with that shortfall and so on. As we have no idea what has happened to this alleged £24m or whatever, it is hard to comment for sure and what do we do for the next few years with no season ticket money and indeed having to pay interest on that? So until he actually comes out and tells us whats going on, we can't know.

This is what i dont get, Whyte has said he used his own finances to clear the debt with the bank and doesnt deny mortgaging the season ticket money for four years, generating a reputed £24 million and for the fun of it we can now add on nearly £6 million on the sale of the Jelavic, so what has/is happening with this £30million

[A.T.G 10,773]

Is our season ticket sales not worth over £17m per year?

Surely he didn't mortgage it all?

[Blue Atheist 194]

I voted "No" but would like to add that its only a "percentage" of 4 seasons worth. Not the full whack. Still bad business sense, though, but could be a lot worse.

[skinnymate1690 782]

no because he said he wouldnt and has lied again

[Bad Robot 21,513]

This is what i dont get, Whyte has said he used his own finances to clear the debt with the bank and doesnt deny mortgaging the season ticket money for four years, generating a reputed £24 million and for the fun of it we can now add on nearly £6 million on the sale of the Jelavic, so what has/is happening with this £30million

What if it has been agreed that the tax assessmenst is 30 million and that is where the money is going but he cant come out and sday that at the minute.

Would you say that is the wrong strategy?

Bsicaly it could be like a fan ownership but in a different way.

[MikeBlue 136]

I can't really answer the OP because we just don't know enough. However, it is possible to come up with a couple of scenarios to which the answer is completely different.

Scenario 1 - "Leveraged buyout" (TM The Glazer Family). Basically Whyte bought the club with borrowed money secured against future club revenues. If this is the case, then it's hard to answer anything but NO to the original question.

Scenario 2 - "Cash flow problems". There really isn't any doubt that in the absence of European football there is a gap between our revenues and expenditure. The way to respond to this is to try an limit costs (reduce the wage bill, try to delay paying for anything as long as possible) and increase revenue (sell players, look at commercial ventures etc) and to be fair this is exactly what Whyte's team have been doing. However this takes time and the danger is that in the short term the club runs out of money and can't pay the wages. Normally a business would go to the banks and borrow to get over this sort of problem but with the tax case hanging over us we can't do this. Many people were saying before Christmas that they couldn't see how we were going to avoid running out of money. Now we know why we haven't - Whyte has managed to secure additional funding using the future ST revenues as security. This may be the only reason we haven't gone into administration already. If we win the tax case, normal commercial funding becomes available again and we can look at restructuring this debt, possibly over a longer period. If we lose, it probably doesn't matter anyway. If this is the situation, then I'd vote YES

I have no real idea which of the above is closest to the truth, there may even be a bit of both going on

[Nicika Jelavic 7]

It's obvious he shouldn't have done it, he talks a good game, but now he's seriously putting himself in the deep stuff.

[54andcounting 627]

As I dont have any inside knowledge of the debts and problems the previous board ran up I cant possibly comment on any schemes the current owner is using to reduce these liabilites. Neither can anyone else on here.

[Thermopylae 15,288]

I suppose the obvious question is what if our season ticket sales fall off over the next few years ... do we then have to repay the "loan" no doubt with a lot of interest?

[Weird_Beard 99]

I suppose the obvious question is what if our season ticket sales fall off over the next few years ... do we then have to repay the "loan" no doubt with a lot of interest?

You don't borrow a loan like that unless you need to spend it just now, surely.

That loan will need repaid, with interest, no doubt about it.

Otherwise, what was the point of borrowing it?

[Thermopylae 15,288]

So why not just call it a loan then ... the way it's put it sounds as if we get the money now and the lenders get the next few years season ticket money when it comes in.

I hate to say it but if there was ever a club who needed oligarch or arab royal family owners it's us just now