Why Brown is closer to blue than Green

Sports writer

Thursday 28 June 2012

The intervention of John Brown has not brought a conclusion to the Rangers story, but it has emphasised the crux of the problem facing Charles Green and Zeus Capital: they can never win the fight for the soul of Rangers.

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Richard Wilson

Their Sevco consortium owns the business and assets of the football club, but the support has now rejected them. Any fans wavering in their scepticism will have fallen in line behind Brown.

A member of the nine-in-a-row team, a close friend of the manager, Ally McCoist, and the rest of his backroom staff, even a member of it himself until he cleared his desk and left his job as a scout on Monday, Brown remains one of the figures who can galvanise the entire Rangers fanbase. Green and Zeus might have intended to float the club on the stockmarket, they even talked of plans of investment and ambition, but nobody falls for those old grandstanding claims any more.

Green and Zeus Capital have left too many questions unanswered, and by making his stand yesterday, Brown has crystallised the objections to their ownership. Green and Zeus Capital have still yet to reveal who owns the club, beyond naming a few minor investors. They have also mishandled the season-ticket renewal process, leaving the money open to the administrators, as well as the players' contracts, allowing several millions of pounds worth of talent to leave the club for nothing, even although a number of them were at least prepared to stay and allow Rangers to sell them, under different ownership.Some fans were still equivocating, but Brown has become a figure to protest behind. Once Walter Smith's consortium formally withdrew their interest, there was no rival owner for the fans to support. Brown has now stepped into that vacuum, and his call for supporters to not renew their season tickets will strike a substantial blow to the plans of Green and Zeus Capital, who were already short of the funding they had promised to raise. They have no credibility, certainly in the eyes of supporters, but seemingly also in the views of potential investors. The club's future is too uncertain, and now the major revenue stream – the season tickets – has been closed to them. Brown has made a defiant and significant move, but he has not yet presented an answer.Supporters will naturally be drawn to him, there is a resonance in a player making a stand for the club. But he cannot demand full transparency from Green and Zeus Capital without offering the same himself. Vague talk about being backed by powerful and influential Rangers men is not enough. The Ibrox support, however roused they were by his move yesterday, need more than rhetoric.That is what Green and Zeus Capital offered in their talk of 19 signing targets, £30m being raised by the end of July, of a kind of limitless glory. It is also what Craig Whyte and Sir David Murray offered, too: the promise of riches but without the proper substance. Fans are no longer so easily won over, although it has taken almost two months for supporters to rise up in full protest at Green and Zeus Capital.As a club, Rangers needs care and attention, not grandstanding. Brown at least offers the right solution, which is fan ownership, taking the club back into the hands of the people who regularly fund it, and whose emotional investment is worth more than the cash that draws people into football with exploitation in mind. Other potential owners made the same pledges – the Blue Knights, led by former Rangers director Paul Murray, always intended to launch a share issue that would open ownership out to the fanbase.Two years ago, McColl was privately prepared to underwrite a bid by the Rangers Supporters Trust to buy the club, and as the protest at Ibrox last night showed, there is enough commitment and passion among the fans to turn that theory into reality. They need assistance, financially and in terms of organisation and process, but the crisis that has engulfed the club might yet lead to a better future.For now, though, a battle is still being fought. Green and Zeus Capital do not appear to have the working capital to run Rangers for any length of time, and now that Brown has urged fans not to renew their season tickets, and highly valued players have left for nothing, there is no means to raise income. The current owners appear caught in a bind, and they now must decide if an exit strategy is worthwhile.Zeus Capital have other clients, and a reputation of sorts to protect. The dramas and difficulties around Rangers have mostly slipped outwith their control; they do not even yet know which league the club will be playing in next season. Will players want to move to Ibrox when the owners have such a troubling reputation that current players are leaving? Brown, and the supporters, have now risen against them. It is not the end, but it signals a key shift in the balance.Green and Zeus Capital own the assets, but in reality they do not own the team. That resides with the fans, whose money and emotional support funds it.

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Why Brown is closer to blue than Green

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