With a growing sense of regularity, Dave King continues to appear and offer his views on the current malaise at Rangers, giving details on what course of action the club should take going forward.
Last month, King, who served as chairman from 2015 to 2020, gave an interview in which he dismissed reports that Rangers had been the subject of significant investment from a US consortium.
King also loaded the shotgun and pointed both barrels in the direction of Douglas Park, the man who succeeded him as chairman four years ago, alleging that Park had instigated the demise in 2021 by failing to back Steven Gerrard after winning the league title.
Now comes the revelation that King is essentially positioning himself to return as president, after it was announced last weekend that John Bennett had stepped down due to health reasons.
Shareholder Dave King has put himself forward to return as Rangers chairman
Dave King has lured Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard to Ibrox as manager
Former Ibrox chairman Dave King with former Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha
“I think he might be the best person to do it for two years,” said King, who remains Rangers’ largest shareholder with 14 percent.
There is certainly some truth to King’s claim that Park played a major role in the situation the club finds itself in. In King’s own words, we are now in a “crisis.”
But King’s role in all this is not insignificant either. He is not blameless. No one at Rangers is immune from that.
Not when it’s been the same cast that has run the club, to one degree or another, for the better part of a decade.
When King forced the regime change in 2015, it was supposed to be a clean slate for the Rangers and a fresh start.
It was supposed to be a chance to rebuild the club from scratch. Yet, nearly ten years on, Rangers fans must feel like they are going round in circles.
There is a power vacuum and King clearly feels he has as much influence among his followers as anyone else being mentioned for the post.
But it’s not that simple. The clamor to defend King as a knight in shining armor is both tedious and predictable.
It is a symbol of a club that continues to stumble from one bad decision to another, lacking vision and leadership at the top.
There is also a certain convenient revisionism in all this, a desire to rewrite history and pretend that everything was rosy under King. Clearly, it was not.
John Bennett has decided to resign as chairman of Rangers for health reasons
Bennett recently handed coach Philippe Clement a new contract until 2028
In the three years before his departure, the Rangers were losing money like crazy.
In 2018, they posted a loss of £14.3m. Those financial results were released while the team were playing a game against Kilmarnock – as good a time as any to bury bad news.
In 2019, the club posted losses of £11.3m. The following year, before the full impact of the pandemic was really felt, it posted a loss of around £16m.
Under King, the Rangers relied on loans and outside funding to cover deficits and make ends meet. In the long term, this was not a sustainable business model.
Privately, Ibrox brass have not forgotten. Despite the appointment of Steven Gerrard and league victory in 2021, they feel King left the club in a financial bind and tied to some bad commercial deals.
Despite his intention to position himself to take charge of matters over the next few years, there are some people still involved at senior levels who would strongly oppose such a move.
Only time will tell whether or not that opposition is reflected among fans, but this latest public statement from King is clearly an attempt to curry favor with the fans.
Speaking to talkSPORT, King said: “At the moment the club is in crisis, I don’t know to what extent, only those inside know. But certainly the operational issues within Rangers are a challenge.
‘Many of the policies, procedures and processes that were in place at the time I resigned have been hollowed out during Douglas’s reign.
‘And I thought if nobody steps forward and we have to resort to some external appointment from City – I’m absolutely sure it won’t move the club forward – but as a major shareholder, maybe I can step forward for a period of time.
“I have made an announcement and I am available to make it. I think something has to happen fairly quickly. The club lacks leadership in all aspects.”
King admitted the current gap with Celtic is significant, both on and off the pitch, but claimed his two-year plan would see Rangers back on top.
Although he had no intention of investing any more of his own money, he said the best solution was to seek outside investment.
The king added: “We will be in Europe and with the right amount of money, we should really be able to move forward and dominate in Scotland.”
If you think the Rangers will be in position to “dominate” at any point over the next two years, then you simply haven’t been paying attention.
Rangers are way behind Celtic in many ways. The gap between the two clubs is as wide as at any time in the 1990s, when Rangers were at their peak of nine consecutive titles.
Rangers lost 3-0 in their first Old Firm game of the season earlier this month.
Dave King has criticised Donald Park, his immediate successor as Rangers chairman
Many Rangers fans will always hold King in high regard, given his role in Gerrard’s appointment and derailing Celtic’s bid for 10 consecutive titles.
But, once again, Gerrard won just one trophy in three seasons and benefited from a Celtic team that suffered the mother of all implosions.
King was also chairman when the club appointed Pedro Caixinha in 2017, so any suggestion that he guarantees Rangers a quick fix is wildly misleading.
Let us not forget that this is a man who was once branded a “shameless, simplistic liar” by a South African High Court judge in a case over his tax returns.
Since King forced a regime change in 2015, the Rangers will now look for their fourth permanent president.
While this doesn’t necessarily have to be a long-term position, it does seem like a pretty high turnover rate.
If Rangers are to move forward, they must demonstrate their ability to learn from past mistakes. They need innovation and a vision for the future.
They are not the same old, tired faces who spout off a few snippets of speech to try to please their followers.
