Stephen Halliday: Craig Whyte’s catastrophic tenure leaves grand plan in tatters

EIGHT months ago, Gordon Smith and Ali Russell were the first high profile appointments of Craig Whyte’s regime as chairman of Rangers.

Yesterday afternoon, the same men became the first to lose their jobs at the Ibrox club as a consequence of Whyte’s fateful decision to place it into administration.

As Whyte’s cataclysmic tenure of Rangers continues to unravel dramatically, with Strathclyde Police now joining the SFA and HMRC on the trail of the financial chaos now threatening the club’s very existence, the departure of Smith and Russell seemed highly symbolic.

For while their respective roles as Director of Football and Chief Operating Officer would inevitably be among the first to become surplus to requirement in administration, their presence had been presented by Whyte as evidence of his clear strategy for the club’s future.

It was in the Willie Waddell Suite, named after a man whose appalled reaction to the current predicament of his beloved club could barely be guessed at, that Whyte proudly welcomed Smith and Russell as his lieutenants last June.

“We as a team have to get it right,” said Whyte. “We will get it right. Ali, Gordon and Ally McCoist are all perfectly capable of running their parts of the business, so I’m just going to be as hands-on as I need to be.”

Time will tell exactly what Whyte had his hands on as Rangers chairman but it is now clear that Smith and Russell were effectively neutered from fulfilling the roles so grandly set out for them last summer. As Director of Football, according to Whyte, former Rangers midfielder and SFA chief executive Smith would be charged with running non-first team football operations at Murray Park, including the scouting and youth development set-ups.

Instead, he quickly became a marginalised figure at the club, frustrated by the lack of resources, authority and co-operation afforded to him in pursuing the tasks he had expected to fulfil.

Russell, a former SRU marketing executive with previous football experience at Hearts and QPR, was charged by Whyte with the day-to-day running of Rangers’ business and commercial affairs from Ibrox. He spoke with enthusiasm and sought to outline a broad vision for Rangers’ progression as he sat by Whyte’s right hand on day one.

“It’s about looking at all avenues,” said Russell. “It’s about looking at the real estate here. How do we maximise that? Is it just a football ground used for football or does it have more uses. How do we sweat that?

“Obviously, football is the core focus but can we use the rooms on non-match days more effectively? What do we do to grow the brand, where do we play as a football team? How do we integrate international players so that we’re building the brand in different markets? Where do we go with our own broadcast rights? There are numerous areas we are looking to investigate.”

Plenty of questions, but as with so much in Whyte’s regime, there turned out to be precious few clear answers.

There was initial talk of reviving the G51 project for development of the land around the stadium, while Russell also re-floated the possibility of taking Old Firm fixtures overseas. But there was little of substance, almost certainly because of the manner in which Whyte was running Rangers financially on the road to administration.

Russell and Smith travelled together to Brazil in December and spoke enthusiastically of a possible link-up with Sao Paolo giants Corinthians.

There was also an abortive attempt to gain a foothold in the Indian market when internationals Sunil Chhetri and Jeje Lalpekhlua were brought to Glasgow to spend a week on trial being assessed by a clearly underwhelmed McCoist.

In the absence of any firm strategic planning from Whyte and his management team, the ideas raised began to become increasingly desperate regurgitations of previously discredited schemes. In January, Russell even unearthed the old chestnut of a British Cup tournament to replace the respective League Cup competitions in Scotland and England.

“Even playing against lower league sides would offer something different and it could take us to some places the team hasn’t been to for a number of years,” explained Russell.

As he and Smith ponder the next moves in their careers, Rangers are certainly heading on a course never charted before in their 140-year history. Wherever it takes them, yesterday’s developments certainly provided final confirmation that Whyte’s regime is a busted flush.