We have however seen a systematic re-writing of history to suit some parties on the one hand and a sad dash of hopeful thinking from many who are so sick and tired of what has happened to the club that they desperately cling to any sign that it’s all over. Different motivations, same result - both bogus.
The facts remain the facts. Without access to the live share register we are not in a position to say with certainty who sold to whom and even less able to deduce why. It’s been a shuffling of the cards. A bloc which acts as one remains.
Large tranches of shares are wielded as proxies - looking at how those proxies moved from one proxy holder to another is instructive. Frankly, I believe they would not move without the guidance of what we can call Mr Green’s friends.
Other shareholdings remain outside the realm of the proxy but they too appear to act as a bloc. Try writing or emailing them asking for a chat about a sale or uplift in share value. Who pops up but the mysterious Rafat Rizvi - he of Interpol warrant and Indonesian death sentence fame - like a rat out of an ever-moving sewer.
Roughly 17% of the share capital of the company was issued at 1p. Mug punters like you and I got them in the IPO for 70p, and some lucky chaps got them at prices in-between. Call me suspicious, but whether regarding the uplift in share value some of these punters received or the largesse dished out pre-IPO it’s simply not in the nature of people like that to give up easily on a good thing.
The directors in a normal company serve the shareholders. Some of us retain a naive belief that in a football club then the best long-term interests of the club should be the priority, but we’ll save that for another day.
Vast swathes of Rangers shares remain in the ownership or under the control of those who were responsible for appointing and supporting those who have frittered away the once in a lifetime opportunities afforded to the club by the IPO. The current board enjoy their support, they voted for them.
The current board talk about rebuilding trust and ‘moving forward’ - it’s perfectly obvious that major changes are still required in the Board Room before that process can even begin. Calls for fans to make sacrifices and change their opinions are made by those who are neither prepared to change or make sacrifices themselves - certainly not in terms of directorships, salaries or perks. Those who claim integrity have to face up to that.
Ally McCoist may have his faults but when he talked of the club needing cleansed he was bang on the money. The AGM changed very little in that department.