While football is a business in itself, football and business share a lot of similarities. One way in which there is a similarity is that in both industries, one person can be a hero to some people and a villain to others.
It is not even the case that they have undertaken different actions to cause some a level of disparity on what people think of them, it is just the fact that there are so many different opinions held on people that whatever they do, some people will love it while others will hate it.
If a referee awards a penalty kick to one team, their fans will appreciate the decision while fans of the other team will not enjoy the decision. If a player scores a goal, his fans will roar will delight while fans of the other team will be feeling low about the decision.
There is also a lot to be said for the actions of the business people that run football teams. If an owner of a club makes a right decision, their fans will appreciate it and other fans will be jealous or envious, while maybe having some element of grudging respect.
Some people love you and some people hate you
Of course, if the owner of a club makes a bad or incorrect decision, their own fans will be on their back while opposition fans will love the decision and often the person. This is the story in Glasgow, a city that has a great business reputation, but this is nothing compared to the reputation it used to have for football.The phrase “it used to have for football” has to be used because one of the two major clubs went bust and was liquidated and in the eyes of many people, it was all down to one man.
Rangers were in perilous financial trouble long before Craig Whyte took over the club. At the time, the media were fully supportive of the “Motherwell born billionaire with wealth off the radar” and the Rangers fans gave him a hero’s welcome. On the day he arrived at Ibrox, the fans cheered his name, shook his hand and they firmly believed that this was the man who would ensure the club would achieve further success.
When fans of their rivals Celtic tried to inform them of the murky past of Craig Whyte, they didn’t listen, engaging in the traditional sense of football rivalry. Over time, as the media woke up to the fact that the saviour of Rangers had a murky past, the Rangers fans turned on the media, accusing them of bias.
Craig Whyte is a hero to some football fans
The Rangers fans were convinced that there was an agenda against the club and their new owner, which meant that the announcement that they moved into administration in February of 2012 came as a major shock.
The liquidation of the club, with the process starting in the summer of 2012, was an even bigger shock. With the original Rangers dead, a new club was hastily formed with the ruling body in Scottish football shoehorning them into the lowest level of professional football in the country. It was a move that angered some but with the potential loss of so much money to the game, it can be seen why the governing body panicked and committed an act that football fans around the country couldn’t agree with.
For the Glasgow fans, the story had changed. Celtic fans were now treating Craig Whyte like a hero, the man who killed off their rival. Rangers fans still try to claim that they are the same club playing at the same stadium and wearing the same style of strip but their reaction to Whyte and the numerous threats that have been imposed on him indicates that they know their club died, and they are supporting a similar yet not quite the same club.
The anger from Rangers fans and the media in being duped by Whyte has seen him placed under extreme scrutiny and there has been a greater level of focus placed on his past business dealings. Unsurprisingly, it has come to light that Whyte has a string of failed businesses to his name and he has faced a legal move to prevent him from being a director in a company.
Whyte faced an action at the Court of Session with a public notice placed in a national newspaper reading; “The Petition of Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, for a petition for a disqualification order in terms of The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 in respect of Craig Thomas Whyte, residing at Rue De Tenao, Monaco. A petition has been brought in the Court of Session in Edinburgh.”
A finding relating to the Company directors disqualification act 1986 went against Whyte and while he is unlikely to look to act in big business in Scotland again, there are now legal barriers in place to prevent him from doing so.
Terry Jones is a qualified freelance writer who has been writing for the past two decades. He enjoys writing about a broad range of topics with particular favourites of his being fly-fishing, economics and the life and times of Winston Churchill.
