HELD TO RANSON

You won’t delve far into contemporary football sagas before Ray Ranson turns up. Even when, as with Southampton and Coventry City lately, there are two on the go at once. It’s probably worth some newspapers’ while getting ‘Ray Ranson has emerged as a bidder’ templates made up.

When it comes to general football finance, though, Ranson has been emerging for years. He’s been a personal success financially. But it’s probably safe to say that this success hasn’t always transferred to clubs with which he’s been involved. Which may explain his recent failures to advance beyond ‘emerging bidder.’

He was even famous as a footballer for losing and as a right-back for missing a tackle – one of the Manchester City defenders left in Ricardo Villa’s wake for the Argentinean’s famous 1981 cup-winning goal. If he was famous, that is. Even Private Eye, normally red-hot on football despite its editor Ian Hislop’s convincing pleas of ignorance, called him Roy Ranson.

He started his footballing journey during Malcolm Allison’s second coming at City in 1978, possibly where he learnt that football clubs are as soon parted with their money as any fools – Big Mal spending wads to prove how important Joe Mercer had been to City all along.

Seventeen years and 450 appearances later - including ten England under-21 caps, they picked anybody in those days, too – Ranson joined Benfield Grieg re-insurance company, owned by Matthew Harding of Chelsea renown. And it was here that ideas of ‘sale and leaseback’ schemes formed. Lending clubs transfer funds, repayable from future sell-on profits, should there be any.

At first glance, that seemed breathtakingly risky. And at second, third and fourth glances too. But such considerations weren’t considerations for clubs getting financial boosts from exorbitant TV deals and, for the few, Champions League riches.

Having wisely invested in Benfield Grieg and sold his stake for untold millions in 2002, Ranson was able to fund ‘Registered European Football Finance’ (REFF for short, to the delight of headline-writers everywhere) which was based in Guernsey (and forget ITV Digital, Guernsey was then vying with the British Virgin Islands to be the ‘new home of football’, to judge by football company accounts).

‘Sale and leaseback’ had been operated in football by (ahem!) merchant bankers Singer and Friedlander, themselves ingloriously involved in marketing football club shares. But REFF quickly became market leaders as Singer and Friedlander mercifully withdrew from the game.

Early newspaper reports suggested that players leased to institutions were owned by said institutions, pre-dating the Tevez third-party ownership affair by years. Among REFF’s institutional backers was Barclays Bank, whose spokesman quipped: “that some of them might turn out for our five-a-side team.” But football’s authorities didn’t act, proof that all was tickety-boo, I’m sure you’ll agree. And such arrangements only entered the public psyche when they inevitably went wrong.

Fulham used REFF. But they could repay loans via owner Mohamed Fayed’s labyrinthine financial arrangements between Harrods and his hotels – “robbing Peter to pay Paul” some might say. Such largesse wasn’t open to Bradford City, who entered administration in May 2002 owing millions to REFF’s insurers Gerling – even REFF took out insurance when some clubs were involved.

And when Leeds United first went apex-over-elbow in 2003, it emerged that REFF had funded transfers (“the REFF six”), including Mark Viduka’s, and were owed £21m, 25% of Leeds’ debt in football’s worst-ever financial results until Abramovich bankrolled Chelsea.

His money made (Leeds had to pay REFF in full as a ‘football debt’), Ranson changed financial tack in 2004, “emerging as a bidder” for the first time at Aston Villa. Villa chairman Doug Ellis wasn’t over-interested in selling to anyone when Ranson first approached him. And while Ellis gave Ranson’s £47m offer in September 2005 the courtesy of a response, it wasn’t a courteous response. Advisedly, as Ellis sold to American billionaire Randy Lerner for £62.6m last year.

Ranson next turned to ‘first love’ Manchester City – having two cracks at them too, this year. Both were rejected Ellis-style by majority shareholders John Wardle and David Makin. They had £24m personal loans outstanding and, eventually, Thaksin Shinawatra to cover them…City’s £32m debt…and a considerable transfer kitty, always a PR plus.

Ranson’s £90m bid would have done likewise. But City weren’t convinced he had the funds (the Premier League was becoming a billionaire’s market). And Ranson never allayed fears that he would saddle City with further debt, Glazer-style, or that he’d saddle City with ‘Big Sam’ Allardyce as manager (too soon after Big Mal? – at least he wasn’t Peter Reid).

Next stop, Southampton, a long-term takeover basket-case with internal politics to dwarf any Blair/Brown feuds. Ranson’s involvement was more indirect, advising SISU Capital – specialist traders in indebted companies and previously interested in Derby County – who were bidding £30m for a 55% stake in the club.

This was far less than Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen had talked about in April. So major shareholders ex-Chairmen Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde were united in opposition to the bid (if little else) but appear to be telling SISU via Charles Sale’s Daily Mail column. And as the Southampton takeover saga drifts towards administration, Ranson has turned his attention to medium-term takeover basket-case Coventry City.

If Ranson thought Lowe and Wilde were a tough crowd, he wouldn’t have fancied being heckled by Coventry MP Geoffrey Robinson. Coventry’s finances, beyond a £30m+ debt, are more labyrinthine than Fulham’s, complicated by stadium ownership issues which even stretched Private Eye’s understanding to its limit. Ranson’s emergence here confirms that he likes a challenge.

At face value, then, Ranson’s been a wash-out. No-one in football yet appreciates his presence. And positive (any) press is rare (just Henry Winter’s Telegraph puff-piece this year). But keeping one’s counsel is often no bad thing. And you can’t deny his football and financial experience. Whether or not you like what he’s doing, he knows what he’s doing. A stand-out in modern English football.

Oh, and apparently Ken Bates doesn’t like him. What better character reference can you get?

MotorMurph is written by Mark Murphy

Entry Filed under: MotorMurph Column

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