Rangers AGM takes bizarre turn over green agenda, waffle and tickets for pals - plus the £10.5m that 'has to go away'

The key points – and unusual topics – raised at the Ibrox club’s 2023 annual general meeting
Rangers chief executive officer James Bisgrove (right) alongside director of football operations Creag Robertson during the 2023 Rangers AGM at New Edimiston House. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)Rangers chief executive officer James Bisgrove (right) alongside director of football operations Creag Robertson during the 2023 Rangers AGM at New Edimiston House. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)
Rangers chief executive officer James Bisgrove (right) alongside director of football operations Creag Robertson during the 2023 Rangers AGM at New Edimiston House. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

It might have been no suprise that a green agenda caused the greatest kerfuffle at Rangers’ AGM.

After all, the gathering, held in the new Edminston House, comes as the Ibrox club – with recently appointed Philippe Clement their third manager in little over a year – are in a far from promising position to prevent Celtic claiming a record 12th title in 13 years. But what could not be anticipated was that the green issue to exercise one early interrogator of the board at the lengthy Q&A that followed the completion of the dry business, was the global push towards net zero. Now, these forums at all clubs tend to produce the random and unintentionally comedic. However, with the first five questions from the floor unrelated to performance on the pitch, large swathes of the back-and-forth were so off beam, it seemed there was no beam.

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Our climate denier shareholder didn’t take the biscuit on that front, but the entire tin. He began with a pre-amble that mutated into amble after amble over his first game in 1993 leading to his chittering nine-year-old self being handed a jacket by an unknown fellow fan. To ensure he was “comfortable”, “toasty”. “That day I realised what it means to be part of the Rangers family,” he waxed. “When we say ‘we are the people’ it is a noun, the people, but it is also a verb. We know what the right thing is to do without being told.”

Rangers chairman John Bennett (centre) alongside manager Philippe Clement and non-executive director John Halsted during the 2023 Rangers AGM at New Edimiston House. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)Rangers chairman John Bennett (centre) alongside manager Philippe Clement and non-executive director John Halsted during the 2023 Rangers AGM at New Edimiston House. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)
Rangers chairman John Bennett (centre) alongside manager Philippe Clement and non-executive director John Halsted during the 2023 Rangers AGM at New Edimiston House. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Then wittering on about the rights to “express our identity and express our individual rights and freedom to travel” the man – clearly a fully paid-up member of the tinfoil-hatted brigade – spoke of available data and citizen journalists as “politicians push net zero”. Eventually chairman John Bennett could take no more. “I’m conscious of time…is there a question?” “Rangers’ drive towards net zero – will you resist or comply?” “Comply with what?” Bennett retorted. After the Rangers chairman asked the agitated fan to “relax” on that front, the sound was turned down on his mic and he was led away. But not before shouting “two words – no surrender”.

Such bathos was almost matched by the individual who expressed his disquiet with the treatment of Rangers travelling fans at European away games. Baton-wielding police in Brondby, crushing at Liverpool, and the unpleasant experiences at the 2022 Europa League Cup final in Seville led him to make a “special offer” to chief executive James Bisgrove for the club’s return to that city next week. With an apartment in Malaga, he invited Bisgrove to come and stay with him – he had a second bedroom with two single beds, so he could bring a friend – and he would pay for the club’s CEO to travel up with him to Seville, under a disguise, to see what life was like on such trips for the ordinary supporter.

Inadequate ticket supply inevitably featured in the questioning, and the funnies. One fan wanted to know why those in the ticket office can get briefs for their “pals”, with one employee accused of charging two pounds more for each of them. An extensive explanation by commercial director Karim Virani in response to a poser over the “headaches” and unfairness inherent in the MyGers ticket system led the questioner feeling unsatisfied. “You are good at the waffle, anyway,” was his withering rejoiner.

The meeting had threatened to go so off track, it was jolting when serious points were made about the club’s finances, and the ability for Clement to be backed in the market following the £13m splurged in all the wrong directions on summer signings under Michael Beale. One female supporter posited that this had left the squad with few sellable assets. Bennett offered “a resounding no” to the deeply-flawed investment process “impinging upon what Philippe wants to do”. “It will not cause any difficulties like we suffered 10 or so years ago. That’s over, well and truly,” said the Ibrox chairman in an oblique reference to Rangers’ 2012 liquidation.

Having agreed to extend the Q&A to 45 minutes from the inadequate half hour of the previous year, Bennett must have given thought to liquidating the extra time. He was rewarded for not doing so, with Clement showing his statesmen qualities in asking to take a question over the booing and lack of “compassion” for players that has once again been evident from the stands at recent home games. “I’m not happy about that,” said the punter making that point, to rapturous applause in the room. The Belgian declared himself “really happy” with this reaction, the newly shaven-headed 49-year-old joking that he had talked about the issue with his barber that morning. To much mirth. “To be serious, it is a major thing,” he continued. “In wanting to come here, I saw such potential with this club in the energy this stadium can give. Along the way it has been lost, and at the beginning of the season – and there were reasons for that. It is a major thing for me to rebuild that. But I cannot do it alone. I need to do it with the players, they are in that story, but I ask the support of everybody in that story.”

The story, perplexingly, that looked as if wouldn’t be given an airing appeared a main plotline: how could Rangers end up posting a £4m loss in a trading year when they had coined-in a Champions League group stage bounty and £26m from player sales. At the very end, though, this was articulated from the floor from an obviously concerned attendee. With his all-bases-covered answer, Bennett seemed to have been waiting for it.

"I'm focused on more than one number but there is one number that I'd ask you to focus on in that profit and loss account,” he said. “Yes, this club, for the second year in a row posted an operating profit but that was post player trading. This club last year lost £10.5m pre-player trading. Keep your eye on that figure. It has to go away.

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"The £10.5m has to become at worst, zero. Now not every club in this country or in Europe operates at that level, minimum break even prior to player trading. They need player trading to have a model. We want to take Rangers to a place where it breaks even or better from that £10.5m and I can tell you right now it's turning, that will turn. Please don't be concerned about that." Frankly, that pay-off was one the Rangers chairman could have uttered ad nauseum across the morning.

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