Mike Ashley & Rangers Football Club

Sissoko has 4.5 years left on his contract I believe. He'll be sold before 1st September this year, though, I'm sure.

 

2019 allegedly.

 

If Ashley was to sell NUFC before the end of this season, I will join ACS in the mythical Fenwicks Window....

 

Aye, me, you ACS and 52000 others.......

 

Could have done this all in one go, but, bollocks....

Just out of curiosity, but where the **** does this Rangers in the CL come from.
Long standing Rangers fans that I know, don't see the CL being on the radar for a long time.
Fervent RFC fans will tell you how far behind Celtic they are, its unreal.
Promotion this season will only happen via play-offs if they manage to get there, that is.

Even if RFC were to somehow win the SPL in future years and then make it through the Qualifying Rounds of the CL, they'd have to Win the Bloody thing before it got near the money Ashley picks up for mid-table in the Premier League with NUFC.

Personally, I think a lot of NUFC have let this myth of Ashley to Rangers, give them sort of comfort and hope that he'll sell NUFC.
No doubt. he will sell in time, but because of RFC, somehow I doubt it......

 

Fcks sake. Another bonfire pissed on.

 

Ask not what Sports Direct can do for you but what you can do for Sports Direct

 

Rangers are in a mess but Ashley has learnt from his time at Newcastle United that you don't have to be successful to get 50k through your turnstiles and buying your sports gear.

 

Thing is though Heed, how much money needs invested into Rangers to get it into the CL. Or simply to make them competitive? Not a lot.

 

More than they can realistically afford. Whoever takes over, no matter how rich they are, still has to get the club operating within the limits of financial fair play. If it was Ashley then he would want them at least breaking even too. Celtic are currently paying wages on a level that struggles to compete against championship clubs, they are in Europe, and they are operating at a loss - and Celtic are light years ahead of Rangers in financial terms at the minute.

To get Rangers into the champion's League then Rangers would have to out-do Celtic in terms of transfer fees and wages. Even if they win the league and get Scotland's one CL place they still have to negotiate three qualifying rounds to reach the group stages. And they have to get to the Scottish Premier League first. Rangers did not cut back that much when they were demoted to the third division. They still have a wage bill that almost matches the rest of the Scottish Championship combined. They are losing money hand over fist which is why they needed a cash injection just to stay in business this week. Ashley has recognised that they cannot continue to operate at those levels of expenditure and has ordered cutbacks. That is almost certainly the reason McCoist resigned. They have already sold one player to Brentford and they face the possibility of more being sold to English First and Second division teams without being replaced (sound familiar?). They have blown automatic promotion even with those wage levels and now they are selling off their better players and not replacing them. Promotion isn't just not guaranteed - it is starting to look very unlikely.

Rangers need a total overhaul from top to bottom. The club is still set up to be a European giant but with the income of a division one English club. They have a massive stadium that includes old, listed buildings that are expensive to maintain. Rangers are literally too big a club for their own good.Whatever the future holds for Rangers it will be neither simple or cheap!

 

Maybe NUST could club together to buy Rangers instead and then gift it to Ashley on the basis he goes away...

 

This is what Ashley is great at though. Taking a bird with a broken wing and getting it to fly again. He doesn't shirk a challenge. Look at some of brands he has turned round through SD. The guy just knows how to polish a turd. Rangers tick loads of boxes. The reason they lose money is because the organisation is an absolute shambles. He will sort that out and will make money out of it. And he will do all within the realms of FFP. Why else would he be showing an interest.

 

I don't disagree that he can turn them around and get them to be profitable - though to do so he will have to alienate the Rangers fans completely as it would involve changing the club from head to toe - and would involve giving up on ambitions of Europe. To get a guaranteed European place in Scotland is not possible while breaking even. The best you can get breaking even is to hope for Europe.

 

What I would like to know is how does a man with only 9% of the shares gets to pick and choose who goes onto the board and who gets sacked. Latest is he's just appointed one of his men as the Financial Director.

 

You underestimate him methinks!

 

Given they owe him £3m, I suspect he can do whatever he wants to

 

Oh! I see, the never ending debt

Mafia + Wonga = Ashley

 

Lol, that's the one! Christ, if only NUFC only owed him £3m......he really is almost a loan shark. It just goes to show in this society that if you've got money, it's pretty much game, set and match.

 

Just a shame there isn't anyone around that can financially ruin Ashley and teach him a lesson. It would be great to pick up the paper in 10 years and read that he has been declared bankrupt and is living on the streets.

 

See, the thing is his idea and work ethic in the 80's when he started SD in Maidenhead (as Sports Soccer) was admirable. But it's the quest for more and more cash that just doesn't work. Child labour for his sh1tty brands, zero hour contracts for staff, aggressive bullying in share trading and the utter disdain with which he has treated the fans of NUFC all in the name of more money that he hasn't got a fcking hope of spending, more over that he simply doesn't need, is sickening. He's hardly Warren fcking Buffet, there's never been a less Philanthropic billionaire, I would imagine. I just don't get it. The world should just introduce a wealth cap. £100m - there you go. You can live the must luxurious of lifestyles with £100m in the bank, you couldn't spend the interest you'd make (£8m a year salary for doing nothing), the rest that your company makes goes to your mates, your shareholders, your staff until they get to £100m, then it topples over and starts feeding people, clothing people, helping society. Seems incredible that it doesn't happen, really. Their business, SD for example, remains profitable - moreso, because of the potential rewards. You could have university students lining up to work in shops, because financially it makes as much sense as being an accountant. You could diversify the workload, spread out around the country as retail would boom as much as finance or IT, and so on and so forth. But it won't happen, because of the same greed I started out with in the first place.