As you will be aware following the announcement from Club 1872, all 3 of us have resigned as directors. We considered it an honour and a privilege to be voted to serve on the board of Club 1872 by our fellow Rangers fans, and those of you who know each one of us personally will understand how painful it was for us to leave an organisation we firmly believed in and worked tirelessly to establish since our election.
We feel it is incumbent upon us to outline to members the reasons why we felt our positions had become untenable. As anyone who has served on a board or committee will know there will always be differences of opinion and varied interpretations on matters and the Club 1872 board was no different in that respect.
However, throughout our tenure we found the conduct of one director particularly challenging, causing all of us to make considerable personal compromises at times. However last week a situation arose, which we felt compromised the organisation rather than ourselves, and that was one compromise we were not prepared to make under any circumstances.
As many of you will be aware Rangers have recently advertised two job vacancies in respect of a Social Media Officer and a Supporters Liaison Officer. At Club 1872 we were informed recently that the latter of these two roles would be our main point of contact at the club in the future.
Word subsequently reached some of the Club 1872 board members that one of our directors had applied for the position of Supporters Liaison Officer. However, as no notification had been received from the director in question this matter remained as nothing more than a rumour.
Matters came to a head when the director in question intimated he, in addition to two Club 1872 directors who had already confirmed their attendance, would attend a meeting at Ibrox facilitated by Rangers Security personnel. This meeting was in respect of the forthcoming Old Firm fixture at which both Police Scotland and Club 1872 were invited participants.
As persons present at this meeting from Rangers were to be involved in the interview and recruitment process for the vacant Supporters Liaison role concerns were raised within the Club 1872 board. As nothing had yet been received in writing to the Club 1872 board this necessitated a phone call by one director to the director in question at which time it was established he had in fact applied for the role of Supporters Liaison Officer.
On such confirmation, the director in question was advised that it would not be appropriate for him to attend this meeting. In essence, we had a Club 1872 director who had applied for a job at Rangers, attending a meeting where persons from the club who were not only involved in the interview and recruitment process, but would also have direct line management responsibility for the post in question, were present.
Despite such advice and the concerns of fellow board members, the director in question attended the meeting.
We tendered our resignations shortly thereafter.
We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere apologies to all members, and in particular, those who voted for us. However, all 3 of us believe that by resigning in such circumstances we were reflecting the standards, values and principles which saw us elected.
Laura Fawkes
Joanne Percival
Iain Leiper
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