There are some signs tonight that elements of the Ibrox support are waking up to the financial disaster that Dave King is leading them into.
With the full unquestioning backing of the media groups that announced a billionaire from Motherwell in November 2010 King was presented, without questioning, as the man to save the club from the humiliation of Celtic winning nine and ten successive titles.
As soon as King completed his takeover in March 2015 the club was kicked off the Alternative Investment Market with a probe launched into a breach of Takeover Rules with King’s consortium buying up over 30% of the shares.
In June 2015 the Warburton Revolution was launched, a year later Joey Barton joined the circus as #goingfor55 gave the deluded and gullible fresh hope.
WATCH
Dave King says he assumes Sports Direct were willing to make a deal due to “resolve” shown by @RangersFC board https://t.co/ZtF8c2cO3E— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) June 21, 2017
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The bills continued to mount disguised as soft loans and ‘shares for equity’ as Pedro Caixinha was welcomed as a footballing visionary after taking Al Gharafa to fifth place in the Qatar league.
As Carlos Pena and Eduardo Herrara arrived from Mexico King announced that he had brought the Sports Direct deal to an end with fans emptying the superstore of the previous season’s full price kit in celebration. Later it emerged that Sports Direct had been paid £3m to terminate the previous contract.
A year ago a new kit deal with Hummel was announced shortly before Steven Gerrard replaced Caixinha, Sports Direct went to court after being denied the matching rights included in the 2017 contract signed with King.
An online store appeared in September followed by a city centre shop in December with the money brought in keeping the lights on as Sports Direct were denied their cut of the income.
Now finally the big bill from Sports Direct is coming their way, mounting to millions of pounds just as Celtic are preparing to go for a ninth successive title, for the second time with all bills paid upto date.
With a secured loan from Close Brothers as well as Elite and Hummel losing out on the latest ruling there could be a rush of firms looking to get their money out of Ibrox while there is still some season ticket money in the Metro Bank account.