David Murray Interview

[nvager 498]

David Murray interview: 'We deserve better' lobby told to wake up to reality

David Murray. Picture: Neil Hanna

« Previous « PreviousNext » Next »View GalleryADVERTISEMENTPublished Date: 15 January 2009

By Stephen Halliday

RANGERS chairman Sir David Murray last night delivered a withering response to the launch of a movement from supporters' groups seeking to express disapproval of the club's leadership, telling disgruntled fans to get used to "reality".

"The people who are moaning and making most of the noise are not exactly captains of industry," said Murray. "They don't have vast experience in business. I don't see any solutions being put forward by them."

Led by the Rangers Supporters Trust, a 'We Deserve Better' campaign was announced yesterday, accusing the club's board of a lack of ambition and strategic planning. This followed Tuesday's night's hoisting of a banner by some fans during the Scottish Cup fourth-round tie at McDiarmid Park calling for Murray to leave Rangers.

The disgruntlement has been stoked by Rangers' acceptance of a bid from Birmingham City for top scorer Kris Boyd last week and the revelation that at least one first-team player must be sold during the current transfer window.

Murray has dismissed the credibility of those behind the protest campaign, however, and insists he remains the best-equipped individual to lead Rangers to better fortune both on and off the pitch. "I can understand the frustration of the fans but I would ask them to look at the reality of the situation," Murray told The Scotsman. "When I sit down and review the economic situation of my business, the football side of it cannot be treated in isolation.

"We have to reduce costs at Rangers and that is why, when we received a good offer for Kris Boyd, we accepted it. The debate goes on as to whether he is a good, bad or indifferent player, or whether he would win the club the title, but the fact is most clubs would accept a reasonable offer for their players at the moment.

"That is the reality, whether you like David Murray or not. Whether it is me, Stewart Milne, John Boyle, Tom Farmer or Dermot Desmond, these are the people who are the financial backbone holding clubs together.

"There is a hysteria out there, driven by people who spend most of their time on websites or trying to get on radio programmes. They go on about mistakes which have been made, but I'm tired of admitting mistakes.

"I have been doing this for 20 years now and I think I have a better hand on the tiller than anyone else could at the moment.

"I would be delighted to go tomorrow as long as I could genuinely believe there was a suitable alternative for Rangers. But please do not doubt my endeavour to make Rangers successful. I believe I'm the best bet for the club in the short term and hopefully in the long term I can pass on a successful club to someone else."

Murray says Rangers' attempts to reduce their wage bill have been hamstrung by the unwillingness of some players to move on despite not featuring in manager Walter Smith's first-team plans. "We said in November that there were seven or eight players too many in the first-team squad," he added, "but we have people who want to see their contracts out.

"They are not all like Jean-Claude Darcheville who went to Walter Smith and told him he wanted to leave if he wasn't playing regularly. We made it easy for him to move on this month and he left speaking highly of the club. Unfortunately there are other people content to just take money out of the club."

Murray stressed, however, that the difficulties faced by Rangers in seeking to balance their books are not as grave as they have been painted in some quarters. "Rangers are strong, even in the current position, and people are mischief making about the extent of our financial problem," he said.

"My own message to our supporters is that we need to pull together instead of undermining this great club we have. I genuinely think we can win the SPL title this season. The race is not over and it can change from week to week."

David Edgar, spokesman for the Rangers Supporters Trust, insists the campaign launched yesterday is not specifically aimed at the club's chairman and owner. "This is not a campaign to get Murray out," said Edgar. "He is going nowhere, we know that and he knows that. It isn't about individuals, it is about everyone at Rangers raising their game.

"There has been mis-management at all levels of the club for some time and the chickens are now coming home to roost. There is a malaise at Ibrox and the fans are fed up with it. At the moment, the only two things keeping Rangers as a big club are its history and its support."

Edgar says banners will be displayed and leaflets distributed at Saturday's SPL match against Falkirk at Ibrox, but the longer-term nature of the campaign remains vague. "It's important to stress this is not just a Rangers Supporters Trust campaign," he added. "It is about all supporters groups, and individual supporters, coming together and letting the club know we do not accept the avoidable situation we currently find ourselves in."

The representative nature of the campaign, however, was called into question when the Rangers Supporters' Assembly, an official umbrella organisation encompassing the club's supporters' groups around the world, issued their own statement condemning any dissension.

Ross Blyth, vice-president of the Assembly, said: "Rangers supporters around the world are concerned when they read that star players could be sold. No-one wants to see that happen but real fans know that no club is immune from the harsh economic climate we are now in. There's no doubt were suffering from not being in the Champions League and the loss of that revenue is being sorely felt.

"But this is not a time for factionalism and division between the fans and the club or between fans groups. Ally McCoist hit the nail on the head when he called for us all to be united."

[OzGers 425]

interesting article...i may be looking at this quite simplistically, but i cannot understand for the life of me, that if the economic climate was as bleak as being made out, then why oh why, did Sir Murray decide to splash the cash and bring in a plethora of players AFTER we were knocked out of the CL. Of course, we received funds from the cuellar sale, but murray, smith and co went over and beyond, bringing in guys like lafferty and edu for a combine 6 mill- forgive me if i am wrong, but if he had not brought these guys in (two positions we are arguably at our strongest in quality and numbers) then we currently would not be in this position and would possibly have a few bob to play with in this window to strengthen and freshen up the team.

[nvager 498]

interesting article...i may be looking at this quite simplistically, but i cannot understand for the life of me, that if the economic climate was as bleak as being made out, then why oh why, did Sir Murray decide to splash the cash and bring in a plethora of players AFTER we were knocked out of the CL. Of course, we received funds from the cuellar sale, but murray, smith and co went over and beyond, bringing in guys like lafferty and edu for a combine 6 mill- forgive me if i am wrong, but if he had not brought these guys in (two positions we are arguably at our strongest in quality and numbers) then we currently would not be in this position and would possibly have a few bob to play with in this window to strengthen and freshen up the team.

Sounds about right to me. Velicka too.

[harry handsome 629]

OZGER, living in Au as we do seperates us from the emotions and feel of what is going on back home, even the general credit crunch that is ongoing in the UK is far from my life. I do however have to agree with what you say, why did we spend money after we were out of Europe on players that we really didnt need.

We need to bring through the youngsters, as mentioned in other posts they would be given more time by the majority. We should move quickly and be easy to deal with for any player who is on the fringe. They tell us that they need to trim the 1st team squad by 10 bodies this could save us 1/2 mil a month in wages alone, add on the taxes, costs etc you could easily be saving upwards of 3/4 mil.

SDM is the best bet because he is the only bet we have, i would rather people listened to fact rather than listen to the press and scaremongerers.

My biggest gripe isnt about SDM he backed Walter in the summer with more funds than Celtic, its with Walter and how he spent the money. We have one or two positions that need looked at with the players in those positions no better than the kids. SDM should tell Walter that he needs to find replacements from within the youth set up over the next couple of years while they perform surgery on the senior squad.

[nvager 498]

OZGER, living in Au as we do seperates us from the emotions and feel of what is going on back home, even the general credit crunch that is ongoing in the UK is far from my life. I do however have to agree with what you say, why did we spend money after we were out of Europe on players that we really didnt need.

We need to bring through the youngsters, as mentioned in other posts they would be given more time by the majority. We should move quickly and be easy to deal with for any player who is on the fringe. They tell us that they need to trim the 1st team squad by 10 bodies this could save us 1/2 mil a month in wages alone, add on the taxes, costs etc you could easily be saving upwards of 3/4 mil.

SDM is the best bet because he is the only bet we have, i would rather people listened to fact rather than listen to the press and scaremongerers.

My biggest gripe isnt about SDM he backed Walter in the summer with more funds than Celtic, its with Walter and how he spent the money. We have one or two positions that need looked at with the players in those positions no better than the kids. SDM should tell Walter that he needs to find replacements from within the youth set up over the next couple of years while they perform surgery on the senior squad.

Excellent post

[Garry88 0]

OZGER, living in Au as we do seperates us from the emotions and feel of what is going on back home, even the general credit crunch that is ongoing in the UK is far from my life. I do however have to agree with what you say, why did we spend money after we were out of Europe on players that we really didnt need.

We need to bring through the youngsters, as mentioned in other posts they would be given more time by the majority. We should move quickly and be easy to deal with for any player who is on the fringe. They tell us that they need to trim the 1st team squad by 10 bodies this could save us 1/2 mil a month in wages alone, add on the taxes, costs etc you could easily be saving upwards of 3/4 mil.

SDM is the best bet because he is the only bet we have, i would rather people listened to fact rather than listen to the press and scaremongerers.

My biggest gripe isnt about SDM he backed Walter in the summer with more funds than Celtic, its with Walter and how he spent the money. We have one or two positions that need looked at with the players in those positions no better than the kids. SDM should tell Walter that he needs to find replacements from within the youth set up over the next couple of years while they perform surgery on the senior squad.

Agree 100%

[OzGers 425]

OZGER, living in Au as we do seperates us from the emotions and feel of what is going on back home, even the general credit crunch that is ongoing in the UK is far from my life. I do however have to agree with what you say, why did we spend money after we were out of Europe on players that we really didnt need.

We need to bring through the youngsters, as mentioned in other posts they would be given more time by the majority. We should move quickly and be easy to deal with for any player who is on the fringe. They tell us that they need to trim the 1st team squad by 10 bodies this could save us 1/2 mil a month in wages alone, add on the taxes, costs etc you could easily be saving upwards of 3/4 mil.

SDM is the best bet because he is the only bet we have, i would rather people listened to fact rather than listen to the press and scaremongerers.

My biggest gripe isnt about SDM he backed Walter in the summer with more funds than Celtic, its with Walter and how he spent the money. We have one or two positions that need looked at with the players in those positions no better than the kids. SDM should tell Walter that he needs to find replacements from within the youth set up over the next couple of years while they perform surgery on the senior squad.

Agree with your points, however i would say that i have only recently returned from living in Scotland for a few years (been back a month, forgot how hot it gets!) I, as with everyone else in the UK was well aware of the dire financial situation the world finds itself in long before Murray decided to spend big, so he needs to take some of the can for the position we are in

[harry handsome 629]

OZ, it is getting hot now i am in Adelaide and we had the 1st hint of summer this week with 41deg, melted my cone i can tell you.

SDM would probably hold his hands up and admit it was foolhardy to spend the money on the players we did, but the fact is he provided the funds which we all screamed for at the time. I remember the good times that SDM brought and lived the fantasy of the CL so i wont condemn SDM because of what we have now. I will however have a go at Walter for his negligent use of the funds provided and his arrogant attitude to the fans and what we want.

[harry handsome 629]

Read with interest that SDM has quoted the figure of 7Million a year on wages is sitting in the stands happy not to play but pick up the wages.

Not far from my figure of 1/2mil a month, how do they sort it?

Cap the senior squad to 20 players.

Do not buy squad players who we reckon might be good from the likes of Falkirk ala Gow.

Employ a better scouting set up to take advantage of the world market not the SPL and Austria Vienna.

Promote from the youth ranks 2 players per year and give them a chance, if they fail at least they got a chance. If they succeed then we may be able to entice more talented youngsters if they reckon they will get treated fairly.

Budget each year for player movements and stick to it.

Release funds to upgrade the stadium by another 10,000 increased revenue in the long term.

Engage a PR company to better defend and promote our brand around the globe.

Re-visit the design of Rangers brand clothing and make it more desireable.

Pay of Martin Bain and employ a legal minded chief executive, or someone with balls.

Bring back Donald Findlay, if he would have us.