Take flight and land a slam dunk, Sarver
DECISIONS are being made under pressure to pay l ast month’s bill before tomorrow’s final deadline. Clarity of thought takes second place to the pressing need for survival — of both the company and the people currently in power.
At a time when high emotion and individual ambition seem to be over-riding the need for genuine long-term viability, chances to raise the debate above squabbles over emergency loans and boardroom power plays are as rare as a QPR away win.
With that in mind, there may never be a more opportune moment for would-be Rangers owner Robert Sarver to cross the Atlantic, answer the tough questions about his plans and push a little of the onus back on to those still resistant to his charms.
Anyone with an interest in preserving the club f rom the i gnominy of sudden insolvency or slow stagnation would be lax, at best, not to at least listen to the detailed plans of a guy steeped in the highlysuccessful business of American sport.
The Phoenix Suns owner has perhaps one last chance to force the hand of those in power — and those who would control the club themselves — by jetting in for some tough Q&A. If not with the nation’s media (we can dream), then at least with the shareholders who must be wooed in order to fulfil this particular ambition.
Because whatever your intentions and capabilities, Mr Sarver, there remain many on this side of the pond harbouring deep distrust — irrational, maybe, but firmly held all the same — of anyone who intends to apply some ‘different’ thinking to a club not without its problems.
They hear about your NBA team and complain that you can’t possibly bring the same model to the SPFL, making a giant assumption about how you’d intend to run Rangers.
More understandably, they still cannot get their head around why anyone with your background should express even the slightest interest in a company that only a true fan could love.
Far more comforting for supporters is the thought that the Three Bears — good Rangers men in Douglas Park, George Taylor and George Letham — or former director Dave King, a throwback to the bigspending days of old, could come in and make everything all right again.
Each day brings fresh revelations about those camps, with Felix Magath now attaching himself to the loyal trio as a potential technical director, while the current regime seem less hostile to the Park, Taylor, Letham group than the alternative. The least bad option, given their antipathy towards King?
As negotiations continue on that front, surely the Three Bears must hold out for at least the same influence as Newcastle owner Mike Ashley — two directors on board, not including the chief executive appointed following that rigorous recruitment process — as the price for propping up a discredited cabal?
And this is before they get around to repaying Ashley’s £3million loan or renegotiating those generous Sports Direct deals.
While all of this is going on — three separate blocks of shareholders each working out how two of them can combine to outflank the other — Sarver has no dog in the fight, to coin a phrase. He isn’t allowed to buy shares in the new flotation and faces an almost impossible task to convince existing shareholders to give up their own hopes of power.
But he can do more than merely sit on the fringes of the fray, upping his offer by increments and attaching short-term fixes in the hope of winning over floating stakeholders, if only by convincing fans that he offers a better vision of the future.
It seems inconceivable that anyone should dismiss Sarver. He’s no Bill Miller. No two-bit tycoon hiding under the umbrella of Club 9 sports. If he would never claim to be a true Rangers man, even a true ‘soccer’ f an, he has a track record of running a relatively successful elite sports club within a budget. That puts him one up on all of his rivals.
From a distance of several thousand miles, he appears to be a serious player. Someone who, unlike certain others in this saga, hasn’t lumbered himself with local advisers entirely unsuited to any role in a professional organisation.
Up against competition that could be categorised as widely popular, slightly distrusted and almost universally despised, Sarver may do a lot of good by making a personal appearance, maybe even whipping up a little heat and noise about what he can offer to Rangers fans.
Right now, to borrow some basketball talk, he’s trying to sink the toughest of three-pointers. Getting up close might not guarantee him a slam dunk — but it has to improve his chances.