Rangers fans finally have something to look forward to other than the end of the season with a new era on the horizon.
The San Francisco 49ers have secured enough shares to complete their takeover with Andrew Cavenagh about to become a major boardroom figure.
The outgoing board have sought transfer guarantees from the 49ers even if there might not be an immediate impact on the budget available to spend.
One thing that the takeover could impact in both the short and long term is the development of Ibrox.
If Rangers are to close the gap on Celtic, catching up financially is a prerogative and previous comments from Paraag Marathe suggest that this could be on the table.
Paraag Marathe has hinted already at Ibrox expansion
The Leeds Utd chairman has spoken about developing Elland Road already despite not being in charge for that long.
With promotion to the Premier League secured, the next phase of their plan could well be to upgrade the famous old stadium.
What Marathe has said previously will be music to Rangers fans’ ears, as reported by The Rangers Review:
“The name of the game for any sports team is to have yourself a sustainable stadium or arena that you can play in that generates enough that you can support the team you want, a competitive team on the field.
“And that was, that was all of our focus, you know, for seven or eight years that I was COO of the team itself. That’s all our focus was, was figuring out where to get, build a stadium, how to build it, how to finance it, how to sell it, all of that. And yeah, we did transition from a $3bn lemonade stand to a sort of more of a sports entertainment company.”
Marathe is right, it’s a chicken and egg situation.
Can Rangers invest in the squad and Ibrox at the same time?
Rangers have to perform better on the pitch and commercially to keep up with Celtic, but they can’t do that when they are shopping on a budget.
Too many players have been missed and the next Rangers manager will inherit a team that is short of quality as a result.
A lot of the ground work has been done already in terms of options to increase the capacity of Ibrox.
Lowering the pitch, filling in the corners, adding cantilevers, all options that wil take Ibrox closer to the magical 60,000 capacity figure.
The current board owners have put a lot of money into the club, now it is the turn of the 49ers to dig deep and take Rangers to the next level.
