Game Over - Try Again?20 Mar 2015 23:24
There seems to be a growing consensus that Rangers 2 is rooted.
Some people are suggesting that if (when?) the inevitable happens, the holding company/same club wheeze will just be played again. But will it? Last time, the assets were owned by the dead company. It was easy to negotiate a sale to a new company at very low value because the administrator was interested only in getting money quickly and easily. This time, the assets will be owned by businessmen who will want to extract maximum price for them. Plus, it has been demonstrated that the assets are worth much more than was paid last time.
Also, last time, there were people ready and willing to pump in 17m of equity (plus the 5m price for purchasing the assets) - mostly with starry eyes and hope of a better future. Would people be so idealistic and generous in funding a new company - especially when a much greater sum is likely to be required to buy the assets?
And last time, the SPL, SFL and SFA seemed to be willing to make up new rules to facilitate the new company (albeit tempered by less enthusiasm from other clubs). The idea was to recreate a Rangers, playing to full houses of 50,000 and competing on "old" firm games. This hasn't worked and the new Rangers has been an embarrassment to Scottish football with new scandals on an almost weekly basis. The support has not halved, and further time in lower leagues for this incarnation or the next will surely see that support erode further. Meanwhile, Scottish football has not collapsed without the real Rangers - it may have suffered a bit in terms of international prestige and ranking but the clubs are by and large in a good financial state and competition has been more open and entertaining. Would the regulators want a Rangers 3?
Moreover, letting a club keep rebooting and replaying its first seasons in fast forward until one of the tries is successful sends a wrong message to other clubs - and a wrong message to creditors if it becomes clear that debts can just be wiped at will.
By all accounts, the stadium needs serious and expensive work that would have to become a competing priority for resources - sucking resources away from development of a team. Yet, with further erosion of support and lesser aspirations for the future, a Rangers 3 would have less and less need for the capacity of a large stadium that just sucked up money in maintenance.
For these reasons, I wonder whether the "Game Over - Try Again?" model could work more than once.
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