These are historic days for Scotland’s establishment club.
Since going into administration on February 15th this year the supporters of Rangers have waited on each statement from the administrators Duff & Phelps in much the same way distraught relatives hang on every word of a doctor as they tell them about their seriously ill relative.
Yesterday they got more bad news.
American the truck tycoon Bill Miller was given “preferred bidder status” and this means that he has two weeks to make his mind up about buying the club.
It is perhaps appropriate that the Ibrox club is being sought by someone who makes money from car wrecks.
The fans had hoped for a “Blue Knights” consortium headed up by former club director Paul Murray.
One year ago today the club was bought by the current owner Mr Craig Whyte.
The mainmedia in Scotland trumpeted him as the new saviour.
The Rangers fans crowed to their rivals that they had another rich man at the helm.
The followers of the Ibrox club started to fantasise about big names players arriving through the main door at Edmiston Drive.
The reality was that Craig Whyte had mortgaged three years of future season tickets sales to give the bank the £18 million that the club owed.
At that point a project team from Lloyds bank were effectively running the club and had been doing so since early 2009.
Mr Whyte handed over one pound to the club’s owner Sir David Murray.
However by that point the knight of the realm was not a major player.
The bank got their money and Mr Whyte got control.
Looking back I don’t think that Mr Whyte could have "bought" the club without the assistance of a gushing local media.
Rangers supporters were told that Mr Whyte was a “billionaire” and that his wealth was “off the radar” when in fact he wasn’t wealthy at all.
When I published this piece on my own site in June 2011 the coverage of Mr Whyte in the mainpress in Glasgow was still like a series of love letters.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/rangers-strike-it-lucky-with-their-new-owner/
When I was in the city the previous month (taking part in a documentary about the attacks on Neil Lennon) I told some people at the BBC that they should look into Craig Whyte’s past.
By August Sheriff Officers were going through the main door at Ibrox and I arranged for a freelance photographer to be there.
I also tipped off one of the main tabloids.
The pictures were on my site first, but the following day they were on the front pages of the two main tabloids in Glasgow.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/photographs-you-were-not-meant-to-see/
With those photographs published there was no denying that there was something amiss at Ibrox.
I was given word by the same source that the administration process would be instigated at the end of October.
However, there was a change of heart at the last minute.
I still have no idea why.
If Mr Whyte had a plan then it didn’t seem to be going smoothly.
In the same month BBC Scotland screened a documentary into Craig Whyte’s rather colourful business past.
His reputation never recovered in Glasgow after that TV programme.
In the January transfer window the club sold their star striker Nikica Jelavić to Everton for £5 million. The Ibrox club still owe Rapid Vienna over £1 million for him. The Austrian club is one of 276 creditors owed money by the club.
Since February 15th Rangers have been in Administration and now there is a preferred bidder.
Mr Bill Miller of Tennessee, a man who made his fortune in tow trucks taking away wreckage, is rumoured not to hold a valid passport.
He hasn’t been to Scotland never mind Ibrox stadium.
The questions are piled up higher than a multiple vehicle collision.
Why would he want to own Rangers?
How does he think he will make the club profitable?
The mainmedia in Glasgow failed a year ago when Craig Whyte came onto the scene.
Many of the wanted to believe that their club had finally been rescued.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/when-journalists-forget-which-team-they-are-on/
One year on those same sports reporters are distraught at the prospect of the club being liquidated and losing its 140 year old history.
Bill Miller’s plan for Rangers means just that.
He has two weeks to make up his mind whether or not he wants to make a bid for the club.
By that time, on the admission of the Administrators, the club will be perilously close to running out of cash.
Bill Miller’s plan is liquidation by another name.
He wants to establish a new company and trade as Rangers leaving the debt with the club which was established in 1872.
Miller’s plan means the death of that club if the creditors will not accept a Creditors Voluntary Agreement (CVA) to get a small percentage of their money.
If the club runs out of cash by the end of this month and there is no bidder then Rangers FC will simply cease to exist.
The days ahead will be truly historic for Scottish football.