Just Who Will Buy Rangers?

The proposed takeover of one of Scotland’s great institutions has been a long drawn out affair, but appears no end is in sight.

The owner Sir David Murray announced his intentions to sell the club four years ago, although some parts of the Scottish media are reporting this as only two.

However, the club is still up for sale and have debts around £30 million, but this figure looks set to be lower once the new annual report is published later this year.

 The bank is effectively running the club. This is mainly down to Murray’s main company MIH being in huge debts and not so much Rangers’.

The club have defied all the odds by winning the last two SPL titles, but unless something is about to change in the overall make-up of the club, expect the worst to happen.

Walter Smith says Lloyds Banking Group will impose tighter cuts to an already limited squad. He has, however, admitted recently that this maybe exaggerated.

But it is obvious to anyone with half a brain in either football or business that Rangers will need fresh investment in order to move forward as a club and compete at the highest level once again.

There have been two main interested parties in taking over the reigns of the club; Dave King and his consortium, and Andrew Eliis, the London property developer, who is either on his own or has some financial backing hiding away.

King is already an Ibrox director and, more importantly to the fans, a lifetime Rangers supporter, but he has problems of his own back in his native South Africa.

He is under investigation for tax fraud and his assets are reported to have been frozen until the case is resolved. However, it is being said the money is still there to purchase Rangers, with the help of Paul Murray (another Ibrox director) and Douglas Park (local businessman within transport)

So what’s stopping them?

Maybe they just want the club as cheap as possible, but their games will have to end soon, and, as Murray stated last week, they will have to put up or shut up.

Andrew Ellis said recently he hopes to buy the club within the next three to four weeks. He will also give manager Walter Smith a new contract, which is bound to please the fans.

The problem with Ellis is nobody knows anything about him. What are his intentions and where is he getting the money from?

Some say he is a Murray puppet to force other bidders to show their hand, and other s say Murray will prefer Ellis in order to get involved in some of the property plans he is set to embark on in the Ibrox area.

All of this is just speculation, but until Ellis or someone close to him comes out explaining what his aspirations are, then we are just going to hear more and more rumours.

To make matters worse a report in the Herald Newspaper today states a European consortium attempted the takeover, but, instead, was found out to be a fake and there was never any money to complete the purchase.

This report is probably the most baffling in this long drawn out saga which appears to be going nowhere.

Rangers need to be bought over this summer. If they are not, who knows what the ramifications will be.