Club 1872 has been asked to invest £2.5m directly into Ibrox to keep the lights on during the most profitable time of the year- June. The first ‘tranch’ is required next month!
The current board were alarmed at the prospect of the fans group buying out Dave King’s shareholding with funds heading off to South Africa rather than into company funds.
After a media splash about a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy a stake in the company things have gone rather quiet with fans opting to pay their bills and buy Christmas presents rather than further enrich Mister King.
Over the last two years the club has diluted the shareholding of Club 1872 from a high point of 11% when they stumped up to buy out Sports Direct to less than 5%.
Despite seeing their stake diluted and being denied a seat in the Blue Room, Club 1872 are looking for thousands of new members to donate money at the same time as the club will be asking for Season Ticket money for next season.
This is the first signal that the current directors are no longer prepared to fund multi-million pound losses with King bailing out 11 months ago and needing a loan he made repaid.
Club 1872 is now in a position to update members and the wider support on our plan to provide funding to RIFC in the first half of 2021. Following discussions with the RIFC Board we can now confirm that a share issue will take place and that Club 1872 has been formally invited to participate at a pro rata level significantly higher than our current shareholding.
Our aim, which has been agreed by the RIFC Board, is to provide up to £2.5m pounds to RIFC in return for shares at a price of 20p per share. If we are able to raise these funds, this will significantly raise our percentage shareholding in Rangers. It will also provide a much needed cash injection to Rangers following the impact of the pandemic on club revenues over the past season.
We have until June 2021 to raise these funds and RIFC have asked us to provide a first tranche to the club in March. It will only be possible for us to provide this level of funding to Rangers if thousands of additional supporters now join Club 1872 over the coming days, weeks and months.
We know that our loyal supporters have already dug deep financially this season through season ticket payments, merchandise and other initiatives. We also appreciate the difficult economic circumstances for many people during this pandemic. However, this is a huge opportunity not just to provide important funds to the club but also to ensure that supporters can protect Rangers forever from a repeat of the events of 2012. The only way to do that is to ensure that the supporters hold a significant shareholding in the club.
Dave King has agreed to postpone his share purchase agreement with us until after these funds have been provided to RIFC. This agreement will resume after June 2021 but we thank him again for his flexibility and for putting Rangers Football Club first, as always.
Club 1872 is presenting this opportunity to the support in the hope that tens of thousands of supporters will now answer the call. Club 1872 is the only way for supporters to participate in this share issue. We are asking supporters to join Club 1872, through our legacy initiative or through one of our standard donation options, with the clarity that all of the share funds we raise between now and June 2021 will go direct to Rangers. This is the single best way for supporters to contribute to the future success of Rangers and the funds are required by the club.
Club 1872 has been hit with a raft of fall-outs and resignations over the last 12 month. There are currently three people on their board.
Over three transfer windows, Director of Football Ross Wilson has only raised £185,000 from the sale of Greg Docherty to Hull City.
Scottish football has no form of Financial Fair Play allowing clubs to run up as much debt as they like with the hope of getting a Champions League group place to cover for previous losses. Club 1872 will require 10,000 fans to come up with £250 to meet the new share offer.
That policy worked well for the old Ibrox club until 2011 when Ally McCoist was in charge against Malmo.