Break out the star-spangled banners and the Make Rangers Great Again baseball caps. What’s the point in being a football fan if you can’t get a little bit carried away?
Rangers supporters, on the whole, seem to be rather excited about the news of potential American investment into the club, as they look to Paraag Marathe, president of football operations at the San Franciso 49ers and the leader of a consortium looking to take control of the club, to revive their fortunes.
And they are right to be. The Rangers fanbase have been crying out for a development like this to give them a shot at breaking Celtic’s dominance over recent years, and attempt to close the financial gap that is only increasing by dint of their city rivals’ participation in the Champions League and their own poor transfer trading.
God knows though that if any support will nevertheless be casting a cynical and scrutinous eye towards any potential investor, it will be the Rangers fanbase.
They have been burned before by the empty promises of supposedly mega-rich money men, after all, so no matter their desperation to end the current cycle of failure they are stuck in on the pitch, they will not tolerate a return to the days when ‘spivs’ and chancers roamed the Ibrox boardroom in their ill-gotten club ties.
This approach though seems a world away from the sort of fly by night monorail salesmen that once stalked Rangers in the dim and distant past. But it is not necessarily the money they undoubtedly have behind them that should have the Ibrox support rejoicing over the potential involvement of this consortium.
The current Rangers board, and the generosity many of them have shown towards their club both in terms of financial investment and their time, will not soon be forgotten by the fans. But for all that they love the club and mean well, the way they are currently running Rangers has them stuck in competitive purgatory.
A wealthy Rangers man steering the ship would always be the ideal option, of course, but alas, one with the expertise to revolutionise the way the club is being run and bring an end to the annual sequence of losses doesn’t seem to be out there.
It’s not that Rangers haven’t spent money, after all, it’s just been spent poorly. And besides, any potential investor would not be able to artificially raise the transfer outlay all that significantly in any case due to financial sustainability rules.
What the club badly needs more than anything is an injection of energy and expertise from someone with a background in reviving underperforming sporting institutions. Someone to get their house in order on both a commercial and sporting footing, and increase the amount they can invest in the team in time by increasing turnover and profit.
That could almost be the mission statement of 49ers Investments, the investment wing of NFL outfit the San Franciso 49ers. And they have previous to prove it.
Read more:
-
Baseline 49ers Rangers takeover cost as 'significant premium' required
-
49ers chief details sporting influences Rangers will look to
-
The hurdles US investors must clear to seal Rangers takeover
Marathe is also the chairman of Leeds United, with his group taking an initial 15 percent stake in 2018, before upping that to 44 percent in 2021. They eventually completed a £170m deal to take overall control of the club two years ago.
Their stewardship of the Elland Road club is generally viewed favourably by their fanbase, with Leeds looking likely to gain promotion back to the English Premier League this season, while Marathe has quelled concerns over the sale of a minority stake in the club to Red Bull.
As another proud, traditional British footballing institution, the fans of Leeds United are as unlikely as Rangers supporters to accept becoming a smaller cog in a bigger corporate machine, and even less likely to accept a rebrand in the way that RB Leipzig or Red Bull Salzburg have.
But by joining the 49ers stable, they will benefit from access to their talent identification networks and infrastructure, while retaining their status as a separate entity.
“They’re another set of eyes and ears — pretty darn keen and expert eyes and ears – in seeing other players in other leagues,” Marathe explained last year.
“Forget even about Red Bull players. They have extra eyeballs on a lot of players. As we evaluate and do the work for this window and future windows, we can say, ‘What do you think of this player?’.
“There’s things we can learn which we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to learn. In terms of an official interplay between the clubs, there’s not one.”
This deal then has the potential to revolutionise and modernise the way that Rangers operate. And for all that the current Ibrox hierarchy may have reached the end of the road in terms of where they can take the club, fans disgruntled by their track record over the last few seasons will no doubt concede that they would not sell on their shares in unison to anyone they felt could not take Rangers forward.
Few will remain once the deal goes through as a professionalisation of the club will inevitably ensue. American John Halstead, who has been reported as being a key figure in these negotiations, may well remain in situ. But as my colleague Chris Jack has also reported in the Rangers Review, beyond the newly appointed chief executive Patrick Stewart and chairman Fraser Thornton, this would be a new broom sweeping through the corridors of power at Rangers.
One, that is sorely needed, and long overdue.
The big question that remains is whether or not Philippe Clement is the best man to carry forward this new strategy from the dugout, and it will likely be the first major call for the new sporting director Rangers are currently looking to appoint. Perhaps that also partly explains the perplexing reticence of the club to dispense with the Belgian following the embarrassing defeat to Queen’s Park.
The only way this succeeds - and the only way that any investor has a prayer of seeing a return, to answer the question over their own motives - is for this project to be run, and revenue to be grown, in a sensible and sustainable manner.
The definition of madness, as they say, is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. The current setup at Ibrox gives Rangers virtually no chance of turning the Scottish Premiership into a two-horse race again.
The fans have stars and stripes in their eyes and can see a brighter future for Rangers at last. The takeover may not be quite signed, sealed and delivered just yet, but for the first time in a long time, the Ibrox support can allow themselves to be (cautiously) optimistic.
