Keith Jackson suspects that yesterday’s Sky Sports News EXCLUSIVE on the Ibrox takeover was prompted from inside the club.
On Wednesday, February 19th the veteran Daily Record reporter came up with the biggest story of his 30 year career with the ailing Glasgow publisher.
It was tabloid bingo with the troubled club about to be transformed by multi-million pound investment leading to a summer spending splurge.
Everything pointed to the San Francisco 49ers to give the story a positive spin, it wasn’t until two days later that it was revealed that Andrew Cavenagh was leading the consortium.
Forty-eight hours after the WORLD EXCLUSIVE! Dave King revealed that he had been in talks with the ‘49ers’, even Daily Record readers could put together the two piece jigsaw for that scoop.
Coming so soon after the Scottish Cup defeat from Queens Park every legacy media outlet was on board with the takeover yarn, anxious to provide ageing readers with good news as the reality of a sixth Celtic treble in nine seasons came closer into view.
There wasn’t a dissenting voice, the phrase Football Sustainability Rules has barely been mentioned alongside the tales of spending sprees and war-chests. The Scottish Daily Express even decided to cover football again with an EXCLUSIVE on a £20m summer war-chest, that’s £5m more than it cost to sign Danilo, Cyriel Dessers and Sam Lammers.
No-one dared mention that £4m is already committed this summer to signing Oscar Cortes or that Ianis Hagi, Tom Lawrence and Vaclav Cerny will be offski in May.
The Feel Good Factor suffered a blow when St Mirren won at Ibrox but it was restored when Phil Clement was sacked, it soared with the appointment of Barry Ferguson and went off the radar after winning 4-2 away to Kilmarnock.
Happy days were back, the dug out was choking with Real Rainjurz Men and suddenly the future was being driven by the legendary captain of the old club who drive into Murray Park in a big orange jeep.
Alas Motherwell intervened on Saturday, reality returned, morale plunged with a double header against Fenerbahce to be faced before playing the Champions who are chasing a 19 point lead with eight matches left to play.
Suddenly Sky Sports were given a slice of the action, a deal in principle for 51% of the shares had been struck with Gordon Duncan posted outside Ibrox to provide hourly updates about nothing at all really.
At 6pm last night Jackson picked up the trail, no longer was the story his baby with a few warning notes sent out.
Asked where the deal stood after the claims from Sky Sports News, Jackson was blunt with his answer on last night’s Daily Record Hotline Live
1 minute 30
Look, I don’t know, I’m not hear to pour anything on anybodies Corn Flakes but the deal packaged up as a major development (from Sky Sports News) is not really a major development.
Of course there has been an agreement in principle which is exactly what we were talking about last night (Sunday).
Everything has now been stamped, checked and double checked by lawyers, that is the agreement, it was agreed in principle and is now in writing and with lawyers.
So it is not really that big but do you know what I find quite interesting? I get the sense that maybe Rangers wanted that out there. Maybe it has came out from within the club, perhaps, I would think what would motivate somebody to do that, you know, what’s the angle on it?
It might just be very simple that Rangers know that this is a very difficult time for their supporters, Season Book renewals may be just around the corner and they just want to put something good out there, some but of news that fires up their supporters after a really difficult, traumatic few weeks.
It could be as simple as that, I don’t know. As we said last night this thing is not over the line, a deal is never done until it is done but it is as near as dammit now.
Jackson was keen to avoid putting a date on when the regime change will actually take place, admitting:
How long is a piece of string in terms of how long it can take to go through everything? As we keep saying, it’s a really complex deal with a number of different strands. There’s all manner of complexities.
Complexities in identifying who is buying and who is selling beyond Dave King who has been on that task for five years.
Douglas Park was in the Directors Box at Ibrox on Saturday, no-one dared to ask him his thoughts on the fakeover or whether he would be selling his 12% stake in the club.
Alongside John Bennett the Lanarkshire based businessman has around £23m of interest paying loans tied into the club, any sign of a hostile takeover and the new owners might have some unexpected payments to make.
When Craig Whyte started his due diligence in November 2011 the Wee Tax Case was one of many surprises that he discovered, the selling price quickly dropped from £30m to that famous one pound coin. Due diligence can be a tougher opponent than HMRC, it can often lead to deep disappointment, especially if you have been told a tale by someone once described in court as a Glib and Shameless Liar.
With Jackson breaking the latest takeover tale a number of Internet Bampots are feeling a sense of Deja Vu as this story tumbles towards the Ben & Jerry’s stage.
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Mind the last due diligence carried out at Ibrox pic.twitter.com/ykdxo35e9m
— BOXER (@boxertoye) March 3, 2025
1 Comment
by Valentine's day massacre
This is what happens when the invisible and unnamed ‘ sources ‘ information dries up …. people start to pass the buck of blame onto each other ! Not only that , but Inaction stated the talks have been going on for 4 months about the ‘ takeover ! ‘ Yet he , or wee Scotty , or big Andy , or Gav from the daily Record had no idea that this was happening … absolutely clueless ! You would have thought that one of those true blue nosed, dyed in the wool scoops employed by the daily Record would have sniffed out the story back then ? After all that is their jobs …as roving theRangers reporters …every day . Not a single syllable was forthcoming from theRangers desk ! It tells us volumes about their scooping credentials ..or lack of them to be more precise ?