DON’T EXPECT A MOODY GERMAN TO DO ANYTHING TO LIFT THE BLUES
THE arrival of Felix Magath adds another surreal act to the ci r cus enveloping Rangers. In truth, circus is the wrong word. At a time when the pantomime season should be pretty much over, events at Ibrox are prolonging the show.
Not since Berti Vogts has a more improbable German been quoted on the Scottish scene.
The former Bayern Munich and Fulham manager has purchased one per cent of the Rangers shares in his own name.
Yet it would be wrong to think he acts alone. Or, for that matter, that Rangers are the first available Scots club he has looked at.
As 2014 came to its conclusion, Sportsmail learned that Magath was part of a German consortium weighing up a bid for Hibernian.
Intent on purchasing a Scottish club, the group thought of Rangers and St Mirren, but were advised the Edinburgh club offered significant potential.
To that end, Magath was scheduled to fly to Edinburgh on December 27 to take in the most emphatic Hibs win over Rangers since 1912. In the end, he didn’t come.
But the experience of seeking a comment on the matter from the man himself was an inglorious episode. Drawing teeth from a great white shark might have been easier.
First came a request to call back in an hour. He didn’t answer his phone again for three days.
The conversation that eventually followed could hardly be described as enlightening. Or effusive.
Magath spent 60 seconds of a three-minute conversation in silence. Not a word. A ‘no comment’ is hardly unusual for a journalist. Encountering football’s answer to a Trappist monk is more awkward.
Eventually, there was a brief, grunting acknowledgement of an interest in Hibernian and a line concerning a planned meeting.
Sir Tom Farmer and Rod Petrie had other ideas. The Germans were outgunned by the announcement of a new fan ownership blueprint by the Hibs board. The consortium’s plans had been headed off at the pass.
So it was, then, that Magath turned his attentions to a bigger fish. Of all the individuals who have passed through the doors of Ibrox of late, he has the potential, surely, to be the most intriguing.
A double Bundesliga winner with Bayern and Wolfsburg, his boot-camp methods — and record — attracted ridicule in England. At Fulham, he acquired a reputation as an unlikable eccentric.
When Fulham captain Brede Hangeland was injured, Magath ignored the advice of his club doctor — sending the kit man to Tesco to buy a block of cheese to apply to the surface of an injury.
His hardline, no-nonsense methods frequently rubbed his players up the wrong way.
Magath and Fulham, frankly, were a match made in hell. His reign was short- l i ved and ended with the London club bottom of the English Championship.
The talk is of an ‘upstairs’ director of football role at Ibrox if he pursues a bid. Yet it seems unlikely — however tantalising the prospect — he will ever succeed with that. Others have taken more decisive strides.
American Robert Sarver has already made two bids f or the club, the second a credible offer of £20million, plus £6.5m in short-term, emergency funding.
The Rangers board rejected his first offer of £18m, but are canvassing shareholders and investors over the viability of the second.
Amongst those consulted will be former director Dave King and the separate consortium of Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor.
King gives little away. The proverbial lone wolf, he keeps his true intentions close to his chest.
Yet, numerous conversations over the course of the last two years have left little room for doubt that he wants to be the main man at Rangers. If not the chairman — as almost happened in October 2013 — then the driving force, SFA permitting.
How he will react to the unexpected intervention of an American sports nut, then, remains to be seen. Bluntly, Sarver s eems an unwelcome interloper in all of this.
His latest bid is both credible and worthy of consideration. But it can really only go anywhere if all the parties interested in playing a part in the future of Rangers agree to work together for the good of the club. And that would be a first.
Magath’s belated appearance on the scene, then, looks like a case of too many cooks stirring the pot.
Yet what it does do is illustrate how tantalising a prospect Rangers are for external buyers.
The Bill Ngs and Bill Millers of this world have moved on. But there are other unlikely figures out there who see Rangers as a chance to pan for gold.
Felix Magath may be one of them. Frankly, that should be all the reason supporters need to hope he never gets near the place.