Dave King has lit the fuse ahead of next month’s powderkeg Rangers AGM by revealing he’ll be voting against the re-election of chairman Douglas Park.
The former Ibrox chief has jetted back into Glasgow ahead of the December 6 shareholder summit to declare it’s time for a change at the top of the marble staircase. The South Africa-based tycoon has voiced fears that Rangers will be left behind if they do not find the fresh impetus needed to challenge Celtic’s domination of Scottish football.
Park is on the lookout for a new manager after sacking Gio van Bronckhorst on Monday, with the Dutchman paying the price for allowing their Old Firm rivals to surge nine points clear and towards an 11th title in the last 12 years. Now King - who mounted an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge Park’s son Graeme from the Ibrox boardroom at last year’s AGM - is coming back for the main man.
Asked if fans should back the chairman’s re-election, the Castlemilk-born tycoon said: “What I would say is I’m not voting for that. The situation is recoverable.
"I think we can be back winning the title, but the way things are going at the moment, unless changes are made to the leadership of the board and the executive of the club, I fear we’ll be stagnating for a long time to come.”
King has been involved in a long-running dispute with the men he once joined forces with as they wrestled control of Ibrox back from Mike Ashley in 2015. The fall-out stems from his decision to stand down from the board just as the Covid pandemic was sinking its teeth into the club’s balance sheet.
King, still the club’s biggest individual shareholder, has spent much of the two years-and-a-half years since sniping from the sidelines - with his attacks ranging from the failure to deliver on budget promises to former boss Steven Gerrard in the wake of the club’s 2021 title win to the treatment of supporters as customers and “ATMs”. The former Ibrox supremo - who also plans on voting against a motion allowing the board to issue shares to hand-picked investors - said: “The fact is, I was already having concerns about where this regime was headed.
“I felt some of the things happening were unacceptable, un-Rangers-like. The treatment of ex-players, the treatment of supporters. I felt voting against Graeme would make that point.
“I had to put my money where my mouth was and use my vote to go along with what my concerns were. It was heading in the wrong direction.
“I didn’t like the way Steven Gerrard was forced out of the club. It’s not the way to treat people that delivered a title for us. I couldn’t not vote with my conscience.
“We really should have invested and kicked on. We could have bought Steven what he wanted. There were reasons why I had to go (from the board).
“At the time, I felt the board would continue. I regret what happened. When I go back to 55, we should have kicked on with a great manager and defended the title. I think the board thought they could do it on the cheap.”
King has struck a deal with Club 1872 that could one day see the fan group take control of his 15.13 percent stake in the club. But he hit out at the board’s refusal to engage with the organisation, saying: “Douglas makes the point that he’s put in all this money and he’s not letting supporters tell him how to spend his money.
“I’ve put in more than Douglas. I’ve put in more money than any one person in the history of the club. But I’ll tell you what. The supporters have put in a lot more than me.
“They put in more than any investor and always have done. Just be honest with the supporters. Tell them what you are doing with the money. Then they’ll still back you.”
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