Charles Green ever the showman as he asks investors to roll up

SO BARBED and bellicose can his conversation appear, and so imbued with bravado, it sometimes feels as if Charles Green is caricaturing the caricature of the bluff Yorkshireman once a guise of comedian Harry Enfield.

• Rangers target admission to AIM by the end of the year

• Club says money raised by flotation to be ploughed back into playing squad and Ibrox

It may be the Stock Exchange rather than stock characters that is now exercising the mind of the man who heads up the consortium owning Rangers. But his ability to rake in pounds and pence to the tune of the £20m he expects from the forthcoming flotation cannot be separated from the sheer force of a personality that is cut through with naked, and at time preposterous, populism.

Timeline of events that led to Rangers flotation

The statement in full

Although it is impossible not to be cynical about his motives and methods, Green has already travelled further than was considered likely in piecing together the elements of the old Ibrox club to ensure a Rangers brand remains in existence. At one stage it was confidently predicted he would not be able to raise the £5.5m needed to purchase the assets of the soon-to-be-liquidated former Rangers. Once he had pulled that off, winning round the supporters as his club started life in the Third Division was considered beyond his ken. Now, with 36,000 season ticket holders, he can boast that his share issue will raise the desired capital – in a flotation he is looking to be approved by the London Stock Exchange by the end of November – because his charm offensives with supporters worldwide in recent weeks have told him they are “ready to engage with the concerns they had in the past of who we were and what our intentions were well behind us now”.

Green has curried their favour by shamelessly dissing any persons or group that the Rangers faithful believe have driven them to their lowest ebb. It is a required tactic because, whatever he might say about fund managers and institutional investors being ready to buy into his club, they might ultimately think better of it with the reputation of Rangers pre-Green likely to be trashed in the weeks ahead. Firstly, by the first tier tax tribunal outcome into their mishandled Employee Benefits Trust avoidance scheme and then by the ruling of the Scottish Premier League’s independent commission into the improper registration of players that was a consequence of EBTs misuse, and could see the club stripped of titles.

Although he says he will buy up any unsold shares, Green’s desperate hope will be that supporters spare him breaking his rule of any individual owning more than ten per cent. He is typically bullish about such a conclusion. He contrives to make the moves to see £20m added to the Ibrox coffers – not to cover any potential funding shortfalls but for the purposes of stadium development and balance-sheet strengthening, you understand – and the club listed on the AIM stock market seem driven by altruistic imperatives.

“I never veer,” he said. “I did a presentation at Murray Park that somebody leaked to the press and it was published back in May. That said I would float Rangers this year, not or two or three years’ time, when we will be back in Europe and then people would have to pay a higher price. That wouldn’t be fair. I made that promise on the 13th of May and I will put Rangers back on the AIM market. I would be disappointed if a bomb went off in America and stopped the markets. Barring that or another international disaster then this football club will be listed before Christmas, with the money raised.

“That is what I promised to do and that is what I am doing. If I was doing it for the benefit of the original investors then I would wait for three or four years when we do reap massive profits and the share price would be a lot higher and we would be worth £100 million but it would be more expensive for the fans. The club belongs to the fans. The

investors rescued it so are entitled to profit. They’ll have now, based on the figures we talked about earlier, made a profit of 100 per cent and if they’re not happy with that then tough.”

Green accepts that the timing of the share issue, just at the onset of the festive period during the most prolonged recession in the modern day, isn’t ideal for hard-pressed Rangers fans to find a spare £500 to invest in their club. “I made this statement in May. I didn’t just drop it on someone’s toes in the run up to Christmas,” he said. “If someone wants to buy £50 or £100 worth, that’s fine also. This is not just for high net worth – it’s for everyone. The meetings we’ve had outwith the country and at the presentations we did last Thursday and Friday, have been really positive. Fans have been saying they will buy shares.

“One of the best things for Charles Green has been fans shaking my hand and thanking me for saving the club but more importantly engaging with them. One of the criticisms I’ve picked up is previously fans didn’t have access to the board or the executive and were left out in the cold. If fans want to put their money in a collective pot and ask for representation on the board we’ve said we’re happy to consider that. There will always be a few doubting Thomases but they are few and far between now. There were issues in the past when people tried to raise money and didn’t succeed but that’s not what will happen this time. If we don’t raise £20m then I’ll buy whatever shortfall there is.”

Ah, the old fan on the board issue. Green throwing the faithful some more toffee. He is the sugar daddy that can seem all too sickly for the tastes of outsiders. But if his genuine hope is that long term Rangers can be a stand-alone business making a profit whatever league it is in, as he claims, he might ultimately need more sweeteners than Willy Wonka.