Dave King looking for return to Rangers with club ‘in crisis’
The Govan club is reeling following John Bennett’s decision on Saturday to leave his post as chairman due to health reasons after taking over from Douglas Park last year.
Former director John Gilligan has been named as interim chairman as the Ibrox outfit look to fill the post while also searching for a CEO, a sporting director and an academy director, while Philippe Clement’s side are already five points behind dominant Celtic in the William Hill Premiership title race.
South Africa-based Glaswegian businessman King, the largest shareholder in RIFC plc with a 14 per cent stake, was previously Gers chairman between 2015 and 2020.
He told TalkSport that Rangers “lacks leadership in all areas of the club” with “a very significant gap on and off the pitch between us and Celtic” and with the club having “actually wasted the money that we did have.”
King said: “I just hope John is well because I don’t know how tough it is being chairman at Rangers at any time.
“But having seen John stepping down, under normal circumstances I would expect someone from the board to step up.
“And when I heard that the board have decided to go outside and get a head hunter and try and get a chairman, a CEO – the job at Rangers is very, very different from chairing a public company.
“Right now the club is in crisis, the extent of it I don’t know, only those inside do know.
“But certainly the operational issues within Rangers are a challenge.
“A lot of the policy, procedures and processes have been in place at the time that I stepped down have been hollowed out during Douglas’ reign.
“And I thought if no one is going to step up and we’re going to have to go to some external city-type appointment – I’m absolutely certain will not take the club forwards – but as the leading shareholder, perhaps I can step up for a period of time.
“So I’ve made an announcement. I’m available to do that. I think something has to happen fairly quickly. The club lacks leadership in all aspects of the club.”
King highlighted the delayed refurbishment of the Copland Stand at Ibrox which left Rangers playing their home games at Hampden Park since the start of the season although they are set return home on Saturday night in their Premier Sports Cup tie against Dundee.
He said: “Clearly we don’t all know what is going wrong, but a lot is going wrong. It is recruitment, on the field issues, off the field issues.
“Something as simple as a stadium, you don’t have to be smart to know that if you’ve got a project like that, it must start 10 minutes after the team finishes the last game in May, if you’re going to be open to Ibrox for absolutely vital European, Champions League qualifiers, where Ibrox is a huge advantage for Rangers. We’ve seen it against bigger and better teams.
“And to have started that project with some of the steel still in China just indicates a lack of basic project management, basic management skills.
“And I’m afraid that’s what’s happening right throughout the club at the moment.
“So I thought, I’ve got the biggest interest, there is a crisis. I think it needs someone to step in quite quickly. So just throwing my name in, it’s now up to the board, I guess, to decide what they want to do with it.
“I think there’s two major objectives. One is to reintroduce the operational policies, controls, procedures, processes that have gone missing over the last couple of years and get the club up to speed there, and secondly, to find a new investor.
“A two-year period, is the time I was thinking of where I can, first of all, get the club up and running properly and have a proper plan going forward as to how we’re going to bridge the gap.”
The PA news agency has contacted Rangers for comment.
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