Rangers AGM: From The Sublime To The Ridiculous

Rangers

Today Rangers held their AGM and as usual it brought up a few talking points. Some of main topics looked positive for the Ibrox club and other statements looked a bit bizarre to be honest.

You can view the key points HERE.

Starting off with the good news, Rangers have become the latest club in Scotland to introduce the living wage for all members of their staff.

I was full of praise when Hearts announced that they’d pay the living wage. I was also extremely critical of Celtic for not taking up the initiative. I think most top clubs in Scotland should be able to pay their staff a wage that can hopefully keep them away from the breadline.

While I am on my soapbox let’s not forget that not all English Premier League pay their staff the living wage. That’s just disgraceful and shameful!

So I applaud the Rangers for taking this positive step in the right direction.

I’d also like to say well done to the shareholder that asked if the club were considering putting a woman on the board. It would be great if they can identify a female who can help take the clubs regime forward.

Chairman Dave King also announced that Rangers would pay back the £5m loan to Sports Direct. I get why they’d not want to do it right at the start of their boardroom coup but it was silly to suggest that they might never need to pay it back.

Thankfully common sense has prevailed and Rangers can get security back on their training ground and the Albion car park.

I think it’s also time that Rangers officially renamed the training centre. It was discussed back in 2012 but it never seemed to be formalised. Mr King seemed to make a point in calling the training complex ‘Auchienhowie’ rather than ‘Murray Park’.

It was extremely unfortunate that a lot of questions from fans/shareholders couldn’t properly be answered but alas the current court proceedings involving the club meant that was simply impossible. I suppose the Gers faithful are at least used to second guessing things at an AGM.

King made mention of the clubs recent troubled past and his hope for a brighter future when he said:

“The club is recovering from all manner of problems and malicious attacks but Rangers is now irreversibly on the way back. Nothing and no one will prevent us from reaching our goals.”  

As I’ve stated in the past, Rangers fans need more than just good sound-bytes. They trust King and his board but that doesn’t mean that they can be fooled again.

They would have been pleased to hear that money will be made available for transfers in January. They would have also been encouraged with manager Mark Warburton who spoke of his need to improve his pool and specifically mention bringing in a new defensive midfielder.

The board seemed extremely confident when answering about the possibility of title stripping. We’ll see if that confidence is merited, with Scottish football you always get a sense that something can pop up to stun people at any moment. Paranoia is rife in the west of Scotland.

Now for the odd parts of the annual meeting.

It was said:

“You’ll go far to find a single football club in the world that’s got a balance sheet as strong as Rangers.”

I think that was an odd statement to make as you’ll get plenty of people denying this and point to the fact that Rangers can’t compete with so many clubs in Europe who have huge attendances, sponsorship deals, TV money and European/domestic prize money. Plus you’ll get those that will gleefully point to the oldco fiasco.

The fact they don’t have control of their merchandise revenue is another point that will be made against this claim. How different it could have been had things been done differently back in 2012!

I didn’t like chat about banning certain members of the press. I think that always looks bad for any club and doesn’t show a transparency that I’d like to see. Feel free to complain and dig out journalists that you think are unfairly reporting on the club. But don’t try and gag the press or ban them, it again shows paranoia in my opinion.

At these AGM’s you always get some ridiculous questions. This time we had a disgruntled shareholder moaning about the lack of Gers in the latest EA Sports FIFA console game. Rangers have been left out the game, get over it. Don’t like it? Don’t buy the game.

But hey it’s an AGM in Glasgow, you can’t have one without controversy or bizarre talking points.

2 Responses to “Rangers AGM: From The Sublime To The Ridiculous”

  1. When you know the answer to the FIFA 16 question, it hardly seems ridiculous. Rangers didn’t have the authority to allow their trademarks and club crest to be used in the game for the first time in nineteen years. EA clearly stated that their was a licensing problem. That’s pretty serious and they dodged the question.

    Try telling the kids to “get over it” when they’ve spent £50 of their pocket money only to realize their team isn’t in it.

  2. I agree in terms of trademarks & crests that’s an issue but wouldn’t be discussed at this AGM.

    Also EA & Fifa have had similar issues in past & left out certain team crests. If they really wanted Rangers it could’ve happened.

    I bought the first Fifa game where they had no real players. Plenty of teams throughout the world won’t be in the game. It’s a fact of life unfortunately

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