RANGERS interim chairman John Gilligan has urged Dave King to stop criticising the way the club is run and told him to behave “like a genuine shareholder”.
South Africa-based King claims the club is in crisis, launched a series of attacks on the board and offered to return as chairman after claiming the club needed a £50m cash injection to compete with Celtic.
John Bennett resigned as club leader for health reasons two weeks ago. Gilligan, who was part of the “Three Bears” consortium that brought King to power in 2015, was asked to take over as interim chairman and assist in the search for a new chief executive, a process that led to further criticism from King. Now exasperated by the criticism from the sidelines, Gilligan addressed the media directly yesterday, saying: “Has any director or any person at the club said anything about Dave? No.
John Gilligan (left), Dave King (centre) and Paul Murray joined the Rangers board in 2015.
Gilligan has taken over as interim chairman after John Bennett decided to step down.
Have they responded publicly? Will I say anything bad about Dave? No. Do I wish he would stop expressing his thoughts publicly? Yes.
‘Please don’t take this lightly. Behave like real shareholders. Don’t do what you’re doing. It’s a shame because he’s a great person and had a huge influence on the club at the time (when Rangers won their last league title).’
King remains the largest individual shareholder with a 15 per cent stake. While Rangers are willing to negotiate with their former chairman, King lacks the support of other major shareholders such as Douglas Park, George Taylor, Bennett and Julian Wolhardt to secure a return at an extraordinary general meeting, and Gilligan claimed there was “no appetite” for the move.
“Dave is a major shareholder and he can say whatever he wants,” he continued. “In my opinion, it’s a bit unrealistic. Dave is a real businessman. He knows how shareholdings work. He’s a 15 percent shareholder, the other directors are 10, 12, 13 percent shareholders. It’s unrealistic.
‘If you look at what’s been said and what the guys have been saying, there is a shareholding structure in the business, there is a projection plan.
“Again, it’s a bit unrealistic because extraordinary general meetings are invariably called by people who want to change something, but the current board doesn’t want to change anything. So why would we call an extraordinary general meeting?”
Rangers have agreed a fresh round of fundraising from existing investors, and Gilligan added: “There is new investment coming into the club. To be fair, Dave talks about new investment but he doesn’t want to invest. I’m not quite sure where he means the investment will come from. There will be investment.”
Despite widely publicised problems surrounding building work at Ibrox, Bennett’s departure, elimination from the Champions League and Rangers sitting five points behind Celtic and Aberdeen in the Premier League, Gilligan dismissed King’s claims of a crisis.
“I think he’s wrong,” she said. “I think it’s unfair. What exactly is he saying that’s not right?”
“What exactly are you saying is going wrong? Give us a plan and tell me. If Dave had a fantastic plan to tell me where we’re going wrong, we’d read it and consider it. I haven’t spoken to Dave. Dave gave me one of the happiest days of my life when he asked me to join him (on the board) 10 years ago and I’ll never forget that.
The King has criticised the Ibrox board for the delay in the refurbishment of the Copland Stand
“Since then, I’ve met him, played golf with him and socialized with him when he’s visited. But I haven’t heard from him, no.”
Asked whether the former chairman’s criticism had destabilised operations within Ibrox, the answer was a shake of the head.
“It’s only destabilizing if the people who are the major shareholders and operate the business don’t have a plan or the people to execute it,” he said.
‘We’ve had difficulties lately with the stadium and things like that, but destabilizing?
No, not particularly.
“Dave has the right to say what he wants. We live in a free world.
But I don’t feel like it’s destabilized at all, no.