Sevco’s share issue is heading for the rocks with just five days left to save the club.
Last week’s barrage of bad news has seriously hampered prospects of raising the £4m needed to delay administration with even the hardcore fans reluctant to back the current failing regime.
Typical of the response is the Rangers First grouping which was launched in a blaze of publicity earlier this year claiming: “RangersFirst was created as a result of a series of meetings on Community Ownership and Fan Governance organised by Supporters Direct Scotland and held in The Louden Tavern, Copland Road, Glasgow.
“To date, we have over 1000 members contributing to the fund with all funds collected going toward the purchase of shares in Rangers Football Club.”
With the opportunity to salvage the club and retain their shareholding just over one third of their members have stumped up for the new share issue at 20 p per share, in December 2012 members paid 70p per share.
So far 1412 members have pledged £29,985- a paltry £21 per member which would barely pay for a ticket to watch Ally McCoist’s League One champions. Rangers First have set a target of raising £85,000 for the current share issue.
Since the launch of the share issue on August 27 the club has been hammered by bad publicity with most of the blame being pointed in the direction of founding father Charles Green.
News that he had sold the naming rights for the stadium for £1 to Mike Ashley were quickly followed by the announcement that staff at the club’s three retail stores had been TUPE’d over to Sports Direct.
On Friday former commercial director Imran Ahmad had £620,000 ring fenced on account of his claim for unfair dismissal leaving under £600,000 in the club’s bank account.
Shareholders have until Thursday to snap up their allocation, if less than £3m is raised the issue won’t go ahead with cheques returned to those shareholders who have decided to invest in the scheme.
