The Rangers chief executive continues to be at pains to stress that his consortium is making a long-term commitment to the Ibrox club, but the reality is that he faces a series of obstacles just to make it through the summer.
The first, and most pressing, is funding. Zeus Capital have not built their funding book, even though Green claimed that he would raise £30m by the end of July. Allowing for a comment to be made in the heat of the moment, it was still a preposterous statement. There are serious concerns that Green may not be able to pay Thursday's wage bill, and the sudden appearance of interested buyers seemed a timely coincidence.
Just 24 hours after Walter Smith's consortium withdrew their £6m offer, news broke yesterday of two Glasgow businessmen – Allan Stewart and Steve McKenna – intending to bid £11m to take control of Rangers. The pair claim that the bid is not ready and that word broke too soon, but if they have not been in contact with Green then the news could only have come from their camp. Given the pair do not seem to have the wherewithal to fund such a bid they are either fronting for someone else – if so, who? – or are a handy leverage for Zeus to set their exit price.
Herald Sport understands that as well as financing issues – there are doubts that the newco has even been able to arrange corporate banking facilities – Green has been privately admitting that the likelihood is that the Scottish Premier League vote will be lost, sending Rangers into either the first or third division. Such an outcome would shorten the queue of potential investors that Zeus Capital might have been able to tempt, even without the complication of having to deny the involvement of Mike McDonald and Rafat Rizvi, a British citizen who was once on Interpol's wanted list two years ago, as investors.
Now Green faces the complication of players not turning up for pre-season training, because they fear it will undermine their case for rejecting the transfer of their contract to the newco. The position of the Professional Footballers' Association Scotland is that the players could also seek a protective award claim of 13 weeks' wages because they believe that the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment procedures were not adhered to. This could leave Green's newco facing a £5m claim.
The union also believes that all of the players are now effectively free agents, since the oldco Rangers cannot be considered a football club any more and because the newco, which Green claims holds the contracts, is not registered with the SPL or the SFA, so also cannot be a football club. Players and their agents are angry at the way they have been treated by Green, who has never sought to communicate with them, and many feel that they are being manipulated. By taking part in pre-season training, or accepting the wage that is due on Thursday, many believe they might undermine their position.
"Players have had no contact from the club," one agent said. "All parties failing in their duties under TUPE, which is to consult, inform and leave a reasonable amount of time. They have to be given a reasonable amount of time, to consider implications, seek advice and come to a decision to TUPE over or not.
"According to Mr Green they're not employed by oldco. They're certainly not employed by newco because they need to have the opportunity to decide to TUPE over or not. Newco is not constituted in any way in Scottish football, so have no basis to register the players in any way. Under oldco, players are due to come back to training on Thursday. They no longer belong to oldco and they haven't had a request from anybody to turn up."
It will only gall Green further that the vast majority of the players would agree to their contracts being transferred under the consortium that was led by Smith and is still backed by Jim McColl and Douglas Park. Some would still retain their minimum fee release clause, but they would be prepared to join the newco and then be transferred, out of loyalty to Smith, McCoist and the club. It is Green, who has refused to engage with them but has sought to force them into joining the newco, who they are at odds with.
"Case law has confirmed that an employee can object to the transfer after it has occurred – where the employee(s) don't know the identity of the transferee (newco)," an employment law specialist said. "It might be argued by the players that they had no opportunity to object as neither Duff & Phelps nor the Charles Green Consortium formally advised them or their union that the transfer was taking place."
