Rangers AGM passed without any controversy or talks of conspiracy theories and reports of collusion, that was saved for across the city, but one speaker in particular stole the show in the shape of Deputy Chairman John Bennett.
Mr Bennett spoke about the business model of the club and how we are now seeing a true partnership between the fans, the work that is done off the pitch in the commercial department and with the board and finally, the players on the pitch.
But perhaps the most interesting comments of the day were around Club 1872 and the recent news that they were hoping to raise £13million to buy former Chairman, Dave King’s, shares in the club.
The whole ethos of the deal was around fan ownership and making sure that the club is in safe hands, however, Mr Bennett made a salient point that many will forget we are lucky to have at the heart of Rangers, as reported by the Glasgow Times:
“There’s obviously been a lot of talk about fan ownership and I can give my perspective on that.
“I’ve said this to my colleagues as well – when you look around that board table, its’ fan ownership.
“When you look around the other investors in the club, that could be Stuart Gibson and others in Asia, it could be George Letham here in Scotland, it could be George Taylor and many others: loyal fans, loyal investors. The very embodiment of fan ownership.
“Someone said to me the other day, ‘Oh I’ve done a bit of analysis and I reckon 95 per cent of this club is owned by its fans’.
“I don’t think we needed that analysis. But sometimes when you just take it as a given you forget that this is the case.”
What should Club 1872 do?
Invest directly into club
Buy Dave King's shares
He is, of course, correct, long-term it would be fantastic for Club 1872 to have a 25% share in the club so that it could protect us from the events of 2012 from ever happening again, but with the removal of those who sought to destroy us and such a strong foundation of wealthy fans investing in the club, it certainly isn’t a short-term priority and perhaps the membership group would be better spent investing any monies raised directly into the club in such unprecedented economic times.