Cowardly Ibrox board back off from van Bronckhorst showdown

No one at Ibrox could face Giovanni van Bronckhorst to tell him that he had been sacked.

Ten days earlier Douglas Park and Stewart Robertson had watched a 1-1 draw with St Mirren, when Celtic beat Ross County later in the day it left van Bronckhorst’s side trailing the hoops by nine points.

The club chairman and Managing Director said nothing. They allowed van Bronckhorst to be interviewed by Sky Sports News to celebrate a year in the job knowing that he wouldn’t be in charge for the match against Hibs on December 15.

If the interview had been recorded before the St Mirren match it was an act of arrogance to agree to that timetable, they could still have pulled it before it was broadcast on Friday November 18.

With van Bronckhorst on holiday the cowardly Ibrox board made their move as Keith Jackson explains in the Daily Record:

And yet still they waited, humming and hawing for another week before finally pulling on the trigger when Van Bronckhorst was contacted on a family holiday and told there would indeed be no way back. Sources in Holland are convinced the club’s director of football, Ross Wilson, was reluctant to make that call and perhaps, if he had his way, Van Bronckhorst would have struggled on for a while before being told to step aside.

Whoever is in contention for the brogues and blazer should make contacting van Bronckhorst a priority.

With a massive turnover of players required over the next two transfer windows a decent budget is required with van Bronckhorst producing a £15m profit over his two transfer windows.