Craig Whyte’s Glasgow Rangers Takeover Bid Reaches Impasse

Craig Whyte’s takeover of the Glasgow Rangers may be more troubled than originally thought. The Scottish businessman had looked sent to complete his purchase of the financially troubled side in short order, but apparently that’s not to the liking of the Rangers board, who’d prefer to wait to complete the takeover until the end of the season. According to a source close to the deal, Whyte would like to move now, and time is running out:

The reality is also that Whyte could simply purchase the club without the board’s involvement, which would rather get around the fact that they don’t want to complete the deal until summertime. However, this would require him to initiate what is expected to be a protracted and rather annoying battle to remove the original board, which unsurprisingly he’d rather avoid. Let’s see who blinks first (our guess is Whyte).

Alastair Johnson has more on his plate than just the impending £30M takeover from Craig Whyte, what with the threat of being fined an obscene amount by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs hanging over his head, but the Glasgow Rangers chairman is still obviously fairly involved in the supposed change of the club’s ownership. And, frankly, he doesn’t see particularly trusting of the potential new owner:

Essentially, the ‘forcing mechanism’ in the takeover would require Whyte to commit to certain promises (presumably to do with funding, cash flown, etc.) upon taking ownership of Rangers. Obviously, the less Whyte has to promise to get the team, the better for him, but if the club was sold without such a mechanism they’d leave themselves badly exposed in case something were to go wrong.