HAVING been involved with the San Francisco 49ers before he started working with Leeds United back in 2018, Paraag Marathe thought that he understood just how intense sport at the very highest level can be.
But his time in West Yorkshire has been an education.
He quickly found out the importance of victory in English game was far greater than it had been at the NFL franchise and is under no illusions about how much pressure he and his associates at Rangers will be under from supporters to deliver success in the seasons ahead.
“It is next level here,” said Marathe. “European football is a pressure cooker like no other. What I have learned is the jeopardy and what is at stake with every single match and every single minute.”
The new Ibrox vice-chairman, though, firmly believes the Glasgow institution can learn much and benefit greatly, both on and off the park, from a close association with an organisation which is renowned and revered across the planet.
“The San Francisco 49ers are one of the biggest and most recognisable sports brands in the world,” he said. “Rangers is a gem of European football. But what the 49ers can bring is a certain global gravitas and awareness to Rangers.
“Now, take the United States or other places where the 49ers are the forefront of people’s minds. Now all of a sudden Rangers are in that same sentence.
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“Why does that matter? It matters when we are out with commercial partners who care about how many times they are going to be mentioned, how many times their name will come up. That has monetary value. It has helped us with Leeds.
“It actually helps the 49ers too, bringing it more into the conversation globally and bringing that awareness. I know from my experience at Leeds and I am already seeing some of the early returns.
“It matters to players that we are out recruiting. People say, ‘Wait a second! The 49ers are involved in this?’ This must mean that there is a certain extra gravitas that comes to it that helps us in the recruitment of players.”
Marathe, who is the president of 49ers Enterprises and the executive vice-president of football operations, has seen how the sporting strategy which is used at the San Francisco 49ers has worked at Leeds United and he is confident Rangers will prosper if they take the same approach going forward.
“We have to really try to stay disciplined and focus on the process,” he said. “The results will matter. I’m not saying they are irrelevant, but if you focus more on the process then chances are you’re going to be right more than you’re wrong.
“It is going to sound simple and basic, but it is the discipline to stay true to these things is what I think matters. First, if we are doing a good job, you are not going to hear from us much. If we are doing a good job then we will let our actions speak for themselves and we will speak when we have something to say.
“We have given that team the right resources to be able to succeed and then we have held that team unaccountable. That is pretty simple and basic. It is the philosophy that I applied at the 49ers, that I apply at Leeds now as well.
“Ultimately that foundation is built upon discipline, thoughtful, analytical, data-based decision making. We don’t want to be in a position where we are just shooting from the hip and just making gut decisions. There is time for gut decisions, not everything is done by a calculator.
“But the more we can stack the odds in our favour and have proper thought to a decision that we need to make before we make it. The more often we can do that with the hundreds and thousands of decisions that we make we will be right more than we are wrong.
“That is essentially the blueprint. There is a lot more detail to that and it sounds so basic and simple, but there is a discipline to that blueprint which stops unsuccessful teams or average teams from reaching that pinnacle. We are going to be pretty consistent in adhering to that blueprint.”
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Marathe acknowledges, though, that Rangers supporters’ demand for success at home and abroad every single season means that the challenges will not be the same as they are at Leeds.
“What’s different is that here, there’s not many clubs in the world where you have the hope and the expectation of being able to win the league, win cups, play in Europe,” he said. “Rangers is a crown jewel of Europe. And every year we get to have that hope and expectation. Frankly, that’s different.”
Asked if Rangers would have to sell players this summer to bankroll their recruitment drive, Marathe said, “That is the first test of our disciple to our philosophy. Fortunately, we have hired Kev [sporting director Thelwell] and hired Russell [manager Martin] who will speak to the specifics of the football decisions we need to make.
“As Andrew alluded to, the resources are in place to allow us to make the best decisions for the club without being forced to make a decision because of club economics or finances. We don’t want to speak about any specific players, but we have the ability to do what we need to do to be successful this season.
Marathe and Cavenagh - who jointly addressed every issue which was raised during a lengthy question and answer session with bloggers and representatives of the media following the Extraordinary General Meeting in Glasgow city centre on Monday – see the interest in Rangers as a positive.
“One of my core beliefs, and what Andrew [chairman Cavenagh] and I have talked about, is that the world is becoming a smaller place,” said Marathe. “It is so much easier to consume Rangers football, to consume the Scottish Premiership, because it is easier to watch through streaming or whatever.
“Football is borderless. It is the world’s great game. It is one of the reasons why we wanted to be involved here. It doesn’t have a border and we are one of the biggest clubs in the world with 600 supporter clubs and millions of fans around the world. The more people that consume the brand, consume the sport, consume the matches, the better for us.”
