Rangers Chairman Dave King has released a statement following the fiasco surrounding manager Mark Warburton and his hotly disputed resignation.
As we told you last night, the club put out a statement saying Warburton had resigned along with his management team, only for Warburton to deny he’d done anything of the kind.
It has since transpired that the resignation was offered last Monday and it was only last night the board decided to accept it – apparently without telling Warburton.
As Rangers’ figurehead, fans have been waiting to hear from King, who lives in South Africa, and his comments were posted on the club’s official website earlier this afternoon.
In it, he refers to Warburton and David Weir as a ‘relatively untested management team’ and discusses the long-tem targets when he took charge at Ibrox, before giving his take on the events of the last week or so.
King writes: ‘Ahead of the Board meeting at the end of January, I advised the manager that the Board wished to review our recruitment plan and performance over the previous two windows. This was a routine request and was timely given the concerns that everyone at the Club has with regard to the high level of wages we were paying relative to the performance on the pitch. In particular, a large portion of our wage bill was not even seeing regular playing time.
‘Under normal circumstances such a review would remain confidential. However, in this instance, your Board’s routine questioning of management was leaked to the media and conveyed as being a negative reflection of the Board’s attitude to the manager and the recruitment department. It was confirmed to me that the leak did not come from a board member.
‘Irrespective of who leaked confidential information, it is clear from subsequent media comments that the manager did not respond well to the Board reviewing his recruitment activity.
‘This is a strange position to adopt and, in my personal experience, is not a position that a more experienced manager would adopt. No manager in the world can reasonably expect to be beyond scrutiny.
‘Things moved quickly from that point. There were rumours that the management team (presumably their agent) was negotiating with English clubs and, in one instance, I was informally approached to ask if the Club would waive compensation if the management team was to leave. While this was unsubstantiated by direct confirmation from the Club in question, I was alert to a conversation that Mark Warburton had with me after joining the Club in which he advised me that his long-term ambition was to manage in the EPL and he viewed Rangers as a stepping-stone to achieve this. His comments to the media simultaneously reinforced his present unhappiness at the Club.
‘I was therefore not surprised when the management team’s agent approached the Club’s Managing Director Stewart Robertson to request a meeting which was held in Glasgow on Monday this week. The outcome of this meeting was that the agent subsequently offered that Mark, David and Frank would resign with immediate effect without compensation as long as the Club, in turn, agreed to waive compensation from any new Club that they signed for. After discussion the Board accepted this offer and employment was immediately terminated. In order for us to achieve our ambitions we need employees that, like your Board members, will always put Rangers first.
‘While we were dealing with the admin and press releases relating to the resignation the agent again contacted us and asked to defer the resignation until the management had secured a new club. I assume that the new deal had somehow collapsed at the last minute. The Board met to consider this request but resolved to hold them to the original agreement.
‘We are now in the process of reviewing the best interim and long-term solution for ensuring that a modern and robust footballing structure is put in place that will continue with and entrench the footballing philosophy that we have in place. We also must protect and support the marvellous work that has been achieved by the Academy over the last two years.’
We have absolutely no idea where things go from her, but what do you make of King’s statement?
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