It is a measure of how strangers underestimate the size and potential of Scottish football support that the probable purchase of Glasgow Rangers by a consortium, including NFL’s San Francisco 49ers investment arm, passed under the English side of the border.
It’s no big deal, the old enemy seems to be saying.
Scots prefer to beg to differ. The 50,000 ticket holders for the Rangers season make Ibrox a permanently sold out stadium, while European success in any of the UEFA tournaments would be a carnival. About 200,000 met in Manchester for the 2008 UEFA Cup final.
It has been a recent painful story. The club’s attempts to be based on Celtic were obsessive and finally without hope. Currently, they are 16 points to their drift at the Scottish Premiership and 45 million pounds in debt.
Influential parts throughout the club saw money being bleeding, year after year, and felt that a soccer institution, with this fan base, was ready for new money and a new perspective.
“We needed someone who mingled with the right circles to defend our international argument,” says one of them.
The 50,000 ticket holders for the Rangers season make Ibrox a permanently exhausted stadium, while European success in any of the UEFA tournaments would be a carnival
Forest guards intend to overthrow Celtic, but feels 16 points to the league
The president of San Francisco 49ers Enterprises Marath was seen at the Rangers Games
And that’s when Andy Mason came in. He is a Gulf Scottish, with experience in property and finance, whose work included four years in the government of Abu Dhabi, bringing sponsors to which the United Arab Emirates describe as ‘national meaning’ projects.
His connections to the rangers behind -the -scenes influence, where he was holder of the season for 10 years, returning to the 1980s. Returning more, he was a Ballboy in a Rangers Cup final in Hampden – later introduced to owner Sir David Murray for the late Sean Connery, an investment client at that time.
It was Mason who was invited to start asking questions about who could be willing to invest. “I needed to find someone who understood Glasgow, Scotland and football,” he tells me, from his office in Dubai.
At times like this, real and intuitive connections – something that transcends merely transactional – are what counts. Mason’s network included another exiled scot – US investment banker Les Allan at Bank Californian Montminy & Co – which brought together new investors.
“He instinctively understood the potential,” says Mason. “I managed to push the idea for this line.” If this agreement happens, it has been Scottish helping Scottish.
Allan had worked with US health insurance magnate Andrew Cavenagh in an agreement to buy the not arrived. Cavenagh liked Allan’s approach and acute sensation to British football. He, in turn, sought partnership and experience and approached the York family – owners of the 49ers – about them to assume a controlling participation.
“By investing together, you are getting the collective benefit and the risk,” says Mason. “The 49ers bring to the table all the experience they have in the execution of franchises and this is golden powder.”
What I am most hearing from experts that are part of this agreement is the huge unexplored potential that investors think they are there in Ibrox. Which can be a £ 120 million agreement seems like a theft.
Rake Celta in profits year after year because of its superior players trade model
49ers can update Rangers with their investment experience and fan involvement
While the Rangers work, Celtic Rake in profits year after year because of their upper players trade model, which leads them to bring about 25 million pounds to a player almost every summer; Its superior recruitment system, which is based on analysis in a way that Rangers does not do it; and its superior merchandising and sponsorship operations.
“These are precisely the types of opportunities that 49ers have the history of updating,” says Mason. ‘They like fans involvement, data, stadium. American Money understands fan involvement, infrastructure investment, such as monetizing an £ 50 million investment.
‘I think this is an opportunity that allows everything in Rangers to be updated. It allows the club to return. It is the culture that makes money, not the money.
Several of those I talked to point to the work that 49ers did at Leeds United at the top of the championship with reduced debt to £ 200 million, as a sign of what could be coming if the deal is ahead.
“Pudding proof seems to be Leeds,” says Mason. Marath de Paraag of 49ers, president of Elland Road, was seen in several Rangers games.
The questions surround whether the Scottish regulatory rules that prevent the owners of one club from having another can affect 49ers plans. But sources suggest that the agreement could be structured to ensure that separate legal entities have Rangers and Leeds. “There is a real desire in Scotland to make it happen,” says one source.
Among those looking with great interest is Graeme Souness, who returned home in Scotland to run the club for a glorious period from 1986 to 1991.
Leeds United could even end up as a food club for Rangers if the business is a successful success
Leeds’ success at the top of the championship is seen as proof of the 49ers experience
“Any potential Glasgow Rangers buyer will quickly understand that they are not just buying a soccer club – they are buying an institution,” Souness said. ‘If it were 49ers, there are initial conversations that Rangers could be a Leed food club.
“But if they took some more steps, I believe I could the opposite.” There is such a great potential to take this club to another level.
Trump’s distressing impact is Putin’s Stooge
A young woman I know has just lost his father to the war in Ukraine.
Just one of the numerous consequences of Putin’s actions, currently encouraged by his new Stooge Trump.
Our politicians obseques the Trump brave because they fear it. But the US will host a football World Cup and an Olympic Games during its presidency, and it will seek the work in self-reflected glory when it carries its considerable presence and permanent in stadiums.
Lots of opportunity for the crowds there to move the appropriate derision and ridicule that are so absent.
The US World Cup Olympic Games will be ample opportunities for the crowds there to accumulate President Trump the appropriate scanning and ridicule that were so absent
Another dye performance
No one would say The Football FactoryA glorifying hooliganism was a wonderful watch when he exhibited over 20 years ago, but his ugly intensity took him straight to the underground world.
The long -awaited sequence, Dustwhich adds cocaine to the mixture, does not summon your hype. It is a movie of incessant scorption – rude, dirty, repetitive, with ‘humor’ deemed desperately, offering new evidence of Danny Dyer’s unfortunate impusability on the screen.
The scourge of Hooliganism is very alive and well in this country, for reasons that are far beyond this movie to articulate.
Last week, we had evidence of the annual cards published by Cardiff that the legal fight of Emiliano Sala is really about the money for them
What are the true motivations of cardiff?
Cardiff City’s six -year legal struggle for its responsibility for the 15 million pound transfer rate agreed with Nantes by Argentine striker Emiliano Sala, who died at a trap aircraft to southern Wales, always seemed to have a class without class.
Last week we had evidence of the annual published Cardiff accounts that this is really money for them.
The club, which this summer will bring its fight for £ 15 million to the Nantes Commercial Court, after decisions against them anywhere else, won £ 12 million before this hearing selling most of the rights to legal claim to third parties.
‘An exceptional gain’ is like the loss of loss club accounts describe this, without the slightest appreciation of joy.
