Won't somebody please buy Rangers?

"Before accepting the role of chairman, I wanted to speak to three constituencies - the board, the management team, and the bank."

So began Alastair Johnston, in his first press conference after succeeding David Murray as Chairman of Rangers Football Club. In case anyone missed the point, he then went on to mention Rangers' reliance on "external funding" several times, leaving no doubt as to the club's biggest problem - the debt owed to the bank, which is estimated at around £25-30m. RFC are skint.

Johnston's plan to alleviate this debt burden is to renergise attempts to find a buyer for the club. How does he plan to achieve this, given that the club has been for sale for years without any serious bidders becoming public? Well, he thinks that the football landscape is changing, and he intends for Rangers to be at the forefront of that change. Given his involvement with IMG, the global marketing company, you can bet that Johnston will be pushing hard for new media-driven opportunities that will somehow include Rangers at the top table.

The press conference is well worth a watch. Downbeat and matter-of-fact, Johnston only becomes passionate later on (around the 16 minute mark on the BBC clip) when discussing potential new opportunities from media companies - ie TV. Rangers seem to be betting that they can escape the "modest revenues" of the SPL and join some sort of pan-European elite. In Johnston's words, "money talks".

Last night's game against Sevilla showed how far the present team is away from the current top European teams, while in the SPL Rangers have just stopped scoring goals. Not only is the squad in poor shape, Johnston can't promise any reinforcements in January, and Walter Smith's contract (which is also up in the new year) is still unresolved.

So even if he is right about a new, TV-driven structure for football that will enable Rangers to achieve parity with the wealthiest clubs in Europe, Johnston has short term issues to address. Unless some generous benefactor appears out of nowhere soon, expect a lot more pain at Ibrox in the coming months.