hackwatching

winalot journalism

In a recent column for the Times, Graham Speirs was pondering the fact that Sir Minty’s latest pronouncements about a new stadium were greeted by scepticism in some quarters and hilarity from the rest of us.

Changed days, thinks Speirsy, but symptomatic of a preveailing view that he has, to paraphrase his own words, 80% of the press in his back pocket.

He then goes on to shine his torch under the rotting floorboards of the media in Scotland by admitting what we’ve long suspected: “In media circles the general rule of thumb is this: remain sweet about him in print, talk him up and generally support his public profile, and as a gratitude he’ll regularly tickle you with stories and titbits for your newspaper. For years any big “exclusive” stories about Rangers generally had Murray’s hand behind them. The sceptics in my business – the precious few, I might add – refer to it as “Winalot journalism”, likening it to pet dogs being plied with biscuits and pats on the head for good behaviour.

Murray is by no means alone in this exercise but he has had remarkable success at it. The high watermark of “Winalot journalism” during Murray’s time came when, with the financial mismanagement of Rangers having reached near-disastrous proportions with the club’s £80 million-plus debt, those who had to desperately scavenge around for themes for their sports columns somehow always managed to miss the obvious one: castigating Murray over the plight of Rangers. It was a taboo subject, because David might be annoyed.

It is in this context, as growing numbers of Rangers fans are now aware, that the latest grand plans for Ibrox must be considered. These plans may well be kosher but, as always, first there is Murray’s spin to hack your way through. Is this another “moonbeam” of Sir Minty Moonbeam fame? Is this yet another case of “for every fiver Celtic spend, we’ll spend a tenner” as the famous Murray proclamation went? Alas, we all know where that led Rangers.”

I fear Speirsy might have to wait a while for his next course of succulent lamb.

As will the journo at the unmissable website

On January 24th the site reported that: “Earlier this month Glasgow Rangers FC confirmed it was looking at three options to increase the capacity of its stadium and transform the area surrounding the Ibrox.

It said one of the strategies was the total rebuilding of the Ibrox, creating a 70,000seater stadium. This would make it the largest football ground in Britain, second only to Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground.

The football club made the announcement after speculation by a Sunday newspaper.

However a source at the club has now cast doubt on the plans saying “nothing is definite” and that a redevelopment may not go ahead.”

Shouldn’t this source at the club be phoning the Sunday Mail. after all, I’m sure their hacks wouldn’t like to be thought of as nuzzling into a big trough of Winalot, would they?

Oh, and incidentally, it was brought to our attention that the original Sunday Mail article included redevelopment by Rangers on the Hinselwood estate - (houses to the south of Ibrox).

Rangers don’t actually own this land - Glasgow Housing Association do and have plans to redelop the area for social housing.

It appears that the cash-strapped Kinning Park club have never approached GHA about any of their developments (!!!) on GHA owned land.

The truth of the matter is that Sir Minty is mortgaged to the hilt with commercial properties, and his companies were barely generating enough cash to service their existing interest payments.

What are the chances of him being able to raise another £200 million for a development like the one outlined by the Sunday Mail in an area like Ibrox, especially given the present dowmturn in the commercial property market?

The last word goes to one of the financial gurus on Celtic Quick News:

“MIH’s net debt of £678M must be close to the limit of what is possible. Net assets are shown as £142M but allowing for Ibrox’s outrageous over-valuation £100M seems like a more sensible figure. Even that may be questionable if there are other, less obvious aggressively-valued assets in there. As one of my favourite financial sayings has it - there is never only one cockroach. Which must be particularly relevant when talking about Ibrox :-)

To look at it another way, if Ibrox is valued in line with Celtic Park, and the average value of MIH assets falls by 9%, the group’s net assets would be - zero. Murray is one horrible year in the commercial property market away from being a busted flush - and a lot of UK property funds are already reporting pretty dismal figures.

The man has had the luck of the Devil on many previous occasions - whether by luck or prior arrangement, I’ll leave you to conclude for yourselves. He might be lucky again, if the property market confounds us all and leaps ahead next year, but for now it looks like it’s squeaky bum time down Charlotte Square way. Again.”

More paranoid ranting available at www.celticparanoia.blogspot.com

 

TONY BANANAS & HACKWATCHER