RUSSELL MARTIN MUST STAY: AND MONEY DICTATES THAT HE WILL
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
I spoke yesterday about the importance of having realistic goals, and a willingness to engage in constructive negotiations as crucial to the success of any protest movement.
The Celtic Fans Collective understands this, and are clearly in it for the long game.
Rangers fans, and their self-appointed fascist overlords The Union Bears, don’t get this.
Rangers New Ownership Structure Makes Sacking Russell Martin a Near Impossibility
Cast your minds back to earlier this summer, when the long-protracted Rangers takeover was finally completed.
As their gloating glee overtook them (big thanks again to all those Rangers fans and the extra revenue their rage clicks and “get it up ye” comments generated for us that weekend) the Ibrox hoard forgot to look at the small print.
They had just signed away the soul of their 13-year-old club to a bunch of mostly anonymous American vulture capitalists.
That oversight is now coming back to haunt them.
As Irish journalist Phil Mac Giolla Bhain revealed in his own investigation into the situation last week, Rangers won’t want to sack Martin because the costs involved are, to say the least, quite excessive.
A severance payment of 18 months’ salary, not just for Russell Martin but for the entirety of his backroom team, is the price Rangers would pay to get rid of their recently appointed manager.
Were that to happen, it would, according to Phil’s sources, have to come directly out of Rangers CEO Patrick “Paddy Bhoy” Stewart’s own budget for the operations of the club.
These investors have put in as much as they are prepared too for now. Like most businesspeople of deal in distressed assets, they’re going to expect a return on their money, or at least an indication that such a return is forthcoming, before they put any more in.
So, there is no financial white knight riding in to save the day on this one. Rangers need to make do with what they have, and that includes the manager.
Expect the personal intimidation, abuse and threats against Martin to step up, once it becomes clear to the cloven-hoofed stormtroopers of the Union Bears that forcing the man to quit is the only way they’ll get rid of him.
However, the more aggressive and more personal their attacks get, the less likely the board or indeed Martin himself are to capitulate.
Again, this is what happens when you launch a protest based on anger and impotence rather than with a reasonable set of ideas for change, and a long-term plan to get at least some of them implemented.
Russell Martin must stay, I think most Celtic fans would agree, and for once, so too does the Rangers Board.