Dave King has blamed his former Blue Room colleagues for the complete failure of Club 1872 to buy out his stake in the club.
The fan group was formed by King in 2015 to bring together a number of different organisations and was used in 2017 to buy out Mike Ashley’s stake at a price of 27p per share. The Sports Direct tycoon bought in at 1p per share alongside founding father Charles Green and Ally McCoist. At a share issue in December 2012 loyal bears shelled out 70p per share.
The current board has regularly issued new shares to repay loans which has resulted in King’s stake being reduced from 20% to just under 15%.
While King tried to shift his stake to Club 1872 the fan reps were under attack on social media and fan forums with the number of subscribers down to under 1,000.
At the recent Club 1872 AGM just seven fans turned up to discuss the accounts and question the board, with that level of apathy it was only a matter of time before King pulled his offer having extracted just £450,000 from the venture.
In a statement covered by the Glasgow Times King explained:
A review of the share purchases undertaken last month reveals that the take-up for the two years to December 2022 is so far short of the agreed amounts that further extensions will not have any meaningful impact in the next few years.
When I initiated the Never Again campaign I had hoped that supporters would take advantage of my offer to become the largest shareholder in the Club but this never materialised despite the efforts of myself and Club 1872 to promote this campaign. My feedback on the possible reasons for this are:
1. Some supporters prefer to own shares directly.
2. Some supporters would support joint fan ownership but not within Club 1872.
3. The difficult economic conditions.
4. Supporters no longer feel that the Club is under threat.
The Club’s recent campaign against Club 1872 and its officers.
Last month the club issued more shares in return for a £1m cash injection, further share issues are expected before Season Ticket renewal time in May, during January Ross Wilson was only able to shift Charlie McCann from the payroll.
GROUNDHOG DAY.
Share issue after share issue to keep the club going, Directors being repaid loans in shares as the money from Bassey, Patterson Aribo has been spent UNWISELY, once the season is over and there’s no one of any value to sell how do The Rangers keep going, maybe Euefa will step in with the financial fair play before more people are ripped off and not payed as the liquidated Rangers were, SFA won’t bother as they have no fair play regulations. Hope the little person does not suffer again.
Most of their money ,if not all of it went on directors soft loans repayments , lost litigation cases like big Masher ,and Hummel etc ! Oh ,I nearly forgot about the compensation they have to pay for reneging on the Australian cup tournament because of their fans’ unwillingness to participate ! All of that adds up to tens and tens of millions of pounds … Still when your business model is ‘simply the best ,’ there’s nothing to fret about …is there !
6. Nobody trusts a glib and shameless liar.