Rangers takeover: I’ll care for Bears, says Charles Green

FROM the moment Charles Green opened his mouth at his introductory press conference last Sunday morning it was obvious that this was a man who will never be stuck for a word or two.

That view has hardened after his latest address on Friday evening, an exploration of the Rangers story that incorporated all the usual favourites – HMRC, CVA, the players, the manager and his supposedly long list of secret backers – but it also strayed into surreal territory. At one point Green compared himself to a childminder from a Hollywood movie. Yes, indeed. Turns out that the new owner of Rangers is none other than the tamer of errant children, Nanny McPhee.

“I have said all along this is not a career move for me,” said Green. “In one of the meetings I said if you have got children and have been to see Nanny McPhee, that’s my role. When you need me but don’t want me I am here [the first half of the Nanny’s catchphrase]. That’s where I am now, the fans don’t want me. I am a bad guy from Sheffield United, but actually, when you don’t need me but want me, I am leaving [the second half] and that’s when the accountant walks in my office with the balance sheet and says ‘Charles we have got all these assets and no debt and here’s the bank statement with a pile of cash in the bank’. Then I’ll disappear as fast as I appeared.”

Nanny McPhee produces her magic by banging a stick on the ground. Green intends to take the stick and hit people over the head with it. “We have got to have the corporate governance. All the things we are seeing now coming out in these reports where David Murray had run it this way and Craig Whyte had done these things, this will never be allowed to happen again.”

Green has the secrecy of the Nanny – nobody quite knows how she does what she does – but hardly the affection. The notion of him as the saviour of Rangers is an exceedingly hard concept to grasp given there is so much we do not know about him, his plans (buy the club, get the CVA, have a share issue and head for the hills in profit?) and his investors, who he says are piling in almost on a daily basis to throw money at the club. He still has an awfully long way to go before he takes ownership of Rangers, not to mind getting it out of the mire it is in at the moment. Green is talking a big game, but, really, the vision of the future he is presenting is a little too good to be true. We shall see.

“The group I represent are not here for the spotlight or the media, they are here for what I consider to be the real reasons for getting behind the club. The other thing I am really encouraged by and would like to make a point of is [that] since our position became public, we have had a number of phone calls and a number of meetings with Bluenoses where people have come forward and said ‘I would like to hear more about this story, I want to understand better what the vision is and subject to that making sense, I would invest in that’.

“That says to me people are looking and taking us seriously and these are people who would be instantly recognisable as Rangers fans with the ability to sign a cheque but also more importantly have the best interests of Rangers Football Club. You will see over the next few weeks, there will be names that come into the story that are local and are people who are associated with Rangers.”

This is nirvana for the fans. But is there any substance to it? Is Green speaking the truth or merely flying a kite? Rangers have been burned so often since this saga began, have been subjected to so many fly-by-nights and false dawns that a dose of cynicism is essential. Believe it when you see it wouldn’t be a bad mantra.

“The Singapore Trust, Mazen [Houssami] and Jude [Allen] are people we have talked about from day one. I put those names out because they understood the situation and were happy having their names out there,” Green continued.

“I am sure everyone is now Googling who they are. People will find that these are proper people of substance. They are not someone who has just fell off the back of a lorry.”

He says the administrators are now ploughing on with the documentation for the proposed CVA while acknowledging the financial carnage they are trying to inflict on those unfortunate enough to be owed money by them. “Whilst I understand for HMRC and Ticketus these are huge sums they are going to be asked to write off, the small creditors, who we shouldn’t lose sight of, are also going to be affected by this.” Indeed they are. Many dozens of them.

Green might evoke a character from a fairytale movie but the reality of what he is getting himself into is about to become very stark. On the first day of June, the salaries of the Rangers players return to their normal levels, from 25 per cent to 100 per cent in one expensive swoop.

There is also the business of the possible exodus out of Ibrox and the transfer ban that stops Rangers replacing those who leave. Nanny McPhee turns brattish children into model citizens and turns crisis families into happy-ever-after stories, but if she fetched up at the door of Ibrox even she might shy away from the scale of the job at hand.

“Whether I like it or not, there is an agreement between the club and the players who took the salary sacrifices that allow them to leave the club at a discount,” said Green. “What I am saying to the players and I am sure what Alistair [McCoist] would want to convey to them is that before you go off and make any hasty decisions just listen to what our plans are for the club, look at what we are trying to do.

“Whilst we understand clubs would want those players because of their skills and their qualities and there is no doubt a financial incentive for them to move, these players are playing for a great club, they’ve got a manager they enjoy playing for and there is still a huge risk for any of them to move south of the Border. One manager might like them but we know ten managers a year change their jobs in that league so there is a risk in change. We would appeal to them: ‘Listen, before you pack your bag and move south of the Border, listen to what we’re looking to do and it may not be the best thing to do is move away,’ and we are going to try and sit down with them.”

Developing the brand and exploring foreign markets is such a recurring theme at football clubs nowadays that it has become a hoary old chestnut, a cliché trotted by one prospective owner after another. Green is no different.

He says he wants to get a foothold in the Far East. He states that one of his potential investors is from China, an untapped market of 1.78 billion people. This stuff is as old as the hills. If Green thinks he can break China – or even get a tiny slice of the action over there – then he had better get in the queue behind the big guns of European football, all of whom are lining up to sell themselves. Barcelona have Lionel Messi as a marketing tool. Real Madrid have Ronaldo. Manchester United have Wayne Rooney and Manchester City have Sergio Aguero. Rangers have Steven Naismith – for now.

Green sees hope from Rangers’ position as a big fish in a small pool. “I honestly believe there will be a European league and that European league will follow the American franchise model,” said Green. “I am convinced that will happen in my lifetime – and I am 58. Definitely in the next ten years I can see that happening. When we talk about Scottish football, Scotland is Yorkshire [he meant in population terms] but it has 30 clubs [sic]. Same population and just look at the clubs in Yorkshire; Leeds, Sheffield United, Sheffield Wednesday, Rotherham, Doncaster. Now there is more written about Glasgow Rangers and Celtic in a day than is written in a month on all the Yorkshire clubs. It’s unbelievable.”

It was an interesting word on which to end.