John Brown has returned to the Sevco battleground- almost two years after his impassioned ‘wherez ra deedz’ speach at Ibrox.
Almost 3,000 fans roared their approval as Brown urged supporters to starve Charles Green out after he had quit his job as chief scout.
Brown’s campaign quickly ran out of steam when Ally McCoist gave his backing to Green with supporters rushing to buy over 30,000 cut price season tickets for the Third Division campaign.
With Dave King picking up the baton and with Dick Gough as a trustee, Brown has returned to the fray urging supporters to put their money into a trust fund led by two men based outside the UK.
How the trust operates and how they gain security over Ibrox Stadium and Murray Park, with a combined value of £80m plus, remains to be seen but rather than back the club Brown has given his support to King’s rebels with a warning that administration is around the corner for Sevco.
“Dave King’s plan is the only show in town now,” the former Dundee boss told The Herald. “He is 100% right in asking for the money to be put in a trust and released to the club only in the right circumstances.
“If he can set up a trust and gain guarantees that Ibrox – and, to a lesser extent, Murray Park – will never be used a pawn to broker deals and be safe in the fans’ hands forever, that would be a good thing. If the board get all that season-ticket money up front, the club maybe won’t last until the end of next season.
“Remember what the board has done in the last two years. From what I can see, all the money has disÂappeared and the chances are it could disappear again. I would never ask Rangers fans not to support their team, but they haven’t been happy for two years and they need to do something now.
“I am 100% certain that Rangers are going to go into administration again further down the line unless the supporters move to take control of the situation. The faces have changed in the boardroom, of course, but IÂ would question who really is running the club behind the scenes.”
No group of supporters has ever taken on a board of directors demanding that the clubs chief assets are handed over as security for season ticket money.
A number of rival supporter groups are opposed to the plan put forward by the Union of Fans which has yet to be approved by the Financial Services Authority.
Undermining the whole issue is the question of ownership over Ibrox and Murray Park which is subject to a claim from Craig Whyte.
The former billionaire from Motherwell was behind the appointment of Duff & Phelps as administrators in February 2012 who in turn sold the assets to Sevco 5088 for a knockdown £5.5m- less their expenses during the administration period.
Duff & Phelps brought Charles Green to the table with the big ‘anded Yorkshireman transferring the main assets from Sevco 5088 to Sevco Scotland which was renamed The Rangers International Club.
In July 2012 Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster signed a secret agreement to fastrack Sevco into the then Scottish Football League without any audited accounts.
With Sevco about to hit the rocks and go into administration it’s expected that another plan will be put in place to ensure that a team in blue plays out of Ibrox again next season.
Meanwhile the FA are set to hold a two day hearing into the finances of Manchester City during the period that Graham Wallace was chief executive of the club.
City lost £149m during Wallace’s watch with Financial Fair Play regulations restricting losses to £37m over that period based on the club’s turnover.