Rangers owner Craig Whyte has fired back at sacked chairman Al Johnston’s warning that supporters must be vigilant over Whyte’s plans for the club.
Johnston was one of five directors who voiced their concerns on the club website about Whyte just hours after the alleged billionaire completed a deal to pay Sir David Murray £1 for 85% of the club.
Whyte extracted his revenge at a board meeting on Monday night that saw Johnston and fellow director Paul Murray sacked with chief executive Martin Bain and financial director Donald McIntyre suspended for reasons unknown.
It’s unclear how Whyte managed to sack two directors without a boardroom majority but within 24 hours of his sacking Johnston was embarking on a round of media interviews emphasising that he was ‘a lifelong Rangers fan and a real one’ whilst there is no evidence to back up Whyte’s support for the club.
Irked by Johnston’s comments Whyte, who has yet to host a media conference, issued a statement claiming: “I’ve been disappointed by comments regarding the takeover made by former board members who are clearly reluctant to embrace change.
“It is not uncommon to bring fresh thinking to an organisation in an effort to deliver greater success and that is the fundamental reason that changes have been made to the composition of the board.
“Further board appointments will be announced in due course. It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the suspensions of the chief executive and finance director at this time.
“I believe most Rangers supporters understand that, as a result of the takeover, the club’s debt to the Lloyds Banking Group has been cleared and I have repeatedly stated to the board my intentions to invest in the team.”
The suspension of Bain places a major question mark over Ally McCoist’s ability to spend his transfer warchest with the suspended chief executive the man trusted to carry out transfer negitiations.
Rangers will face Champions League qualifying ties during July with only around a dozen players on the club’s books having experience of playing in Europe.
Whyte’s wealth and motivation for buying the club from Murray concerned the club’s directors with Johnston worried about the effect on 26,000 shareholders after 85% the club was sold for £1.
Johnston said: “I’m not going to make any comment with respect to the current circumstances at the current time, except that I will say – as a lifelong Rangers fan and a real one – that the 26,000 other shareholders in Rangers, as well as the hundreds of thousands of other supporters need to remain vigilant and continue to exert pressure on Mr Whyte to support the club financially as he has publicly committed to do.”
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I made the mistake of assuming it would be a lot easier for Celtic to win the league in the season just gone since Rangers were in such dire straits financially, and yet here we are at the season’s end with the league trophy at Ibrox for the third year is a row.
For that reason I will wait and see just how this takeover of Rangers by Whyte pans out as the season unfolds before taking any great joy from the squabbling between the former and current Ibrox directors.
looks like they are still in deep shyte .no interviews, no word on why martin vain has been suspended an still no questions being asked by the scottish media . imagine celtic suspended peter lawwell , i,m sure their would be a frenzy by the madia with all sorts of speculation as to the reasons for it. c,mon HMRC ,put them out their misery and close them down ! then mr shyte,s agenda will become clear . fire sale anyone ?
The mess rangers are in will only give the SFA and SPL more reason to back them, and of course rangers fans more reason to send life threatening messages in the mail to us.
This group are scum today, they were scum yesterday, and make no mistake about it, they will be scum tomorrow. They look after each other and see the way forward as making threats to the lives of decent people, all because they are either Catholic, or Celtic connected.
This whole sorry and disgusting mess is being deliberately downplayed and shielded from the public due to the appeasement and connivance of the Scottish media and their allegiances to RFC.
Johnston is no fool and his warnings to the supporters were given for a reason….and I’m tempted to believe it’s in the restructuring of the debt. Whyte rightly claims they do not owe any more money to the bank, but what he didn’t say was that they now owe him the money, or rather, the company he set up which paid the debt. 28 million quid does not simply disappear into the ether.
His company paid this to the bank and they will expect to see that back, plus interest. What should not be forgotten here is the basic point that is, Whyte is not alone…it is not all his money…..the money has come from numerous sources and despite the media’s claims of how fervent a supporter Whyte may be, no-one is mug enough to pay 28 million quid and not expect to see it back.
The real story is in what’s NOT being said, NOT being asked and of course, why Bain was made to fall on his sword.
The story has a set of legs on it Skippy would be proud of…the pity is that the excuse of a media in Scotland will compound their negligence and dereliction of duty in not reporting it as it should be.
I was at school with Craig Whyte and can state categorically that he was a MOTHERWELL fan.
The fifth director was John Greig and he is still on the board no surprise there he always has been a yes man he was an overated player a terrible manager he was a willing particapant in all the rangers bile and bigatory over the years.
Voted the best ever Rangers player it shows you how they see football the best clugger ever ask Bobby Lennox
No way… he’s an undercover tim.