The 49ers Enterprise Rangers takeover should be signed and sealed in a matter of weeks and long before the end of this season.
The investment arm of the San Francisco 49ers, featuring Leeds Utd chairman Paraag Marathe, are locked in advanced talks to take control of the Ibrox club and pump in fresh investment to try and revitalise a Scottish football giant. Reports elsewhere have suggested that the negotiations could drag on until the summer, but Record Sport, who broke the story on Wednesday, understands that things are progressing far more rapidly than that and the keys to the club could be in American hands in weeks rather than months.
Our man who brought you the story, Keith Jackson, revealed on Hotline Live that Rangers fans shouldn’t expect things to drag on or have to wait until the current Premiership campaign is finished. he said: “I’d be surprised if it took that long. I’ve seen it speculated that it could be finalised sometime between April and June which isn’t very specific. I think it’s way further down the line than that and it will be sooner rather than later.
“This is a very complex deal with lots of different layers and lots of different things that would have to be agreed upon. It may be that you can’t agree everything all in a oner, there may be various things that have to be agreed upon.
“I don’t know, I’m speculating but I can only come to that conclusion because of the way the Rangers shareholding is configured. There’s lots of different people who have lots of little chunks. That in itself makes it complicated deal to do.
“I’m sure there will be parts of it that are far down the line and maybe others that aren’t. But all in all, you have situation here which shouldn’t require too much time to get the whole thing nailed down,
“It might be a different story if you felt there was a resistance to it or people around the table weren’t willing or happy to to be around the table. The feeling I get from this is that there aren’t any reluctant parties here. There might be one or two who don’t want to let go entirely and want to be involved and that might raise an issue.
“But I get the feeling that all the parties involved are ready and willing. I’m sensing from this far that I don’t really feel any resistance to it. On the contrary.”