Dave King Articles - Evening Times

[JFK-1 1,674]

Arguably initial King targets have been met or are likely to be. When he took over he said we had to get out of the championship and not via the play offs which was achieved. In addition to that he said we needed to get back into Europe and specifically said that that might at first be via the Europa league which also looks like to be achieved.

 

We also made a Scottish cup final in his first year and may even make a second SC final. King has delivered in my view.

[D'Artagnan 173]

 

Refreshing to see our club shunning media outlets which have treated our fans and club with absolute contempt.

 

"So as you sow, so shall you reap"

[ian1964 10,416]

King – Interim Results Encouraging

 

https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/king-interim-results-encouraging/

[Bluedell 5,329]

Dave King, the Rangers chairman, has accused his former manager Mark Warburton of having been too thin-skinned to handle the Old Firm environment and said he became “shirty” when given advice he didn’t like about Joey Barton.

 

Warburton is taking legal action against Rangers for the disputed circumstances of his departure last month but King said the Ibrox club was considering a counter-claim now that Warburton had quickly re-emerged in charge of Nottingham Forest.

 

King, back in Scotland on one of his infrequent visits from his base in South Africa, said he felt personally disappointed in Warburton, having given him considerable financial backing to sign Barton and ten other players last summer. When Warburton’s agent approached Rangers last month to discuss severance terms, the board of directors interpreted that as a resignation. Warburton, assistant manager David Weir and head of recruitment Frank McParland continue to dispute that.

 

“I think it could have been handled a lot better,” said King, who felt Warburton engineered a move to Forest which ultimately came to pass without Rangers receiving any compensation. “If Mark really felt he wanted to get away, he could have had that conversation with me or with Stewart [Robertson, the managing director] or whoever he wanted to speak to. He could have said ‘look, it’s not working, I’m finding Glasgow very tough’, or whatever the reason was, and we could have planned the exit. We could have done it differently. But I don’t think it should have happened in such a ramshackle manner.

 

“I’m going to have a legal discussion [about a counter-claim]. It’s a possibility. When we got the approach from their agent — about ‘could they resign and we wouldn’t pay them compensation?’ — I had a strong sense that was a precursor to them going to Nottingham Forest. It didn’t make sense otherwise.” He insisted that Rangers took the approach from Warburton’ s agent as a resignation. “You can’t un-resign. They resigned, we accepted the resignation, they decided to un-resign.

 

“Mark’s temperament is different, as you know. It’s not a criticism. He is a little bit thin-skinned. In an environment like Glasgow, having a thin skin is certainly not an advantage, particularly with the media. The fact is it is part of the Glasgow deal. It is a tough environment and, if you are thin-skinned, it is not going to be easy to adjust to that.

 

“If you are going to have big signings with big personalities you have to have the ability to manage the big signings with the big personalities. Don’t ask people’s advice and, if you get it, get shirty about it. That was a decision the manager had to make [about Barton]. It didn’t work out. It was an expensive exercise.”

 

King surprisingly claimed there is a possibility of an agreement being reached in the long-running merchandising dispute with Mike Ashley, which would enable Rangers to endorse a renegotiated deal with Sports Direct in time for a pre-season kit launch. “We are holding on for something that’s right and, when we do get it right, we will say that to supporters. The question is, can we leave something in it for them when it’s still largely in favour of the club and I don’t think that’s impossible. All I can really say is that I do believe there is a possibility that, [in the] pre-season, we might be able to do a proper kit launch that we can endorse and that will have the support of all the fans.”

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/kings-dig-at-thin-skinned-warburton-b6lpk3vdv

[Bluedell 5,329]

When Warburton’s agent approached Rangers last month to discuss severance terms, the board of directors interpreted that as a resignation.

 

Discussing severance terms in itself isn't a resignation....although I remember us having that discussion on here already.

[Uilleam 5,429]

Discussing severance terms in itself isn't a resignation....although I remember us having that discussion on here already.

 

'Twas done to death, resuscitated, then subject to murder again.

 

What was more interesting, I think, was this part of his interview, particularly given the criticisms poured upon DK, by a no of media outlets, regarding the appointment of Pedro Caixinha.

 

Why didn’t you speak to Caixinha before he was appointed?

It didn’t happen because it wouldn’t happen, the way we run the club. The board of the football club [as opposed to the Rangers International Football Club plc] operates and runs their own deal so I certainly wouldn’t get involved in putting names forward. The selection process is something I would never be involved in and from a governance point of view it’s something I shouldn’t be involved in.

 

The Times' take in full, is below

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/king-people-say-im-absent-but-im-here-far-more-often-than-id-like-to-be-5zfdk7kqq

 

In a wide-ranging interview at Ibrox yesterday Dave King laughed off the possibility of being jailed, dismissed criticism of how rarely he shows up at the club, and insisted he had enjoyed almost nothing about being chairman of Rangers.

 

What do you say to people who claim you’re never here?

I’m not going to leave South Africa, that’s for sure. Listen, I don’t think it’s an issue. Personally I think it’s an advantage. The only disadvantage of me not being available on a regular basis would be in the corporate hospitality side of things. Ideally you would have the chairman at games, meeting everyone and talking to them. That would be a perfect world. But then you have got to dial back and ask ‘what is right for the club?’

 

I initially I said I did not want to get involved at Rangers, I did not want to invest in Rangers. My position remains the same. But I’m left in a situation that, as a South African, and despite other attempts from different rescue operations, I became the one who had to come in and do it. Did I want to do it? No. I absolutely didn’t want to do it. But is the club better with a local chairman? I don’t know because where would he come from?

 

Have I had any fun or enjoyment from being involved in Rangers these part two years? Not much. If you added it all together it would only come to about ten hours, and that was probably all after the semi-final [win over Celtic] last season. There is nothing fun about what I’m doing. There’s litigation, being sued by Sports Direct and have people trying to put me in jail. What is fun about that? But I didn’t do it for fun. I did it because I felt at that time there was no-one else willing to step into the breach.

 

I travel to Scotland more often than I’d like to. People say I’m absent but I’m here far more often than I’d like to be. It’s actually taking up more of my time than I’d like. But I signed up to do it.

 

Surely as a Rangers fan you would like to go to more games?

It’s not a question of not wanting to do it, but I live in South Africa. I have Rangers TV. I mean, I watch every game. I don’t actually have to be at Ibrox. Let’s put it this way: if it was a condition of me being involved in Rangers that I had to get to relocate to Scotland I’d be single. My wife would divorce me as she certainly wouldn’t come here. And I’m not willing to become single.

 

How will you respond to the Takeover Panel ruling that you must make a 20p-per-share offer for the club’s entire equity because you formed a concert party to gain control in 2015?

I think it is quite academic. There are a number of ways I can handle it. The way it works is I would have to make an offer and there would have to be more than 50 per cent acceptance of that offer, which means Mike Ashley would have to accept, the Easdales would have to accept, Club 1872 would have to accept. I think the chance of it being accepted is really remote. I think it is pretty much a non-issue but I just have to think what I want to do about it. My argument was there was a consortium [to push through his takeover]. But it was myself and the supporters really. It was certainly never myself and Douglas Park or George Leatham. That remains my argument. Their findings are different and I have to decide whether to appeal it or not.~

 

You have faced a potential jail term if convicted on some of Mike Ashley’s legal actions against you?

For me on a scale of one to ten it doesn’t get to one. The threat of going to jail, it’s quite amusing. My family say ‘we’ll see you at Christmas, which jail will we see you at?’; we genuinely laugh about it. I do this for a living. This is what I do. I wouldn’t have taken it on at Rangers if I didn’t have the temperament and the personality. If I wasn’t up for the fight then I wouldn’t have done it and I certainly wouldn’t be here two years later doing what I’m doing now.

 

Where did you expect Rangers to be at this stage of the season?

I would have expected us to be equidistant between Aberdeen and Celtic. If we were 12 points behind Celtic and 12 points ahead of Aberdeen I would have thought that was a fair position. That’s clearly not worked for us on the park this year. We have spent far more than half of the [proposed] £30 million already. I think £30 million is not enough. We are behind where I thought we would be on the field. The retail [dispute] for me is not an issue. We are happy to put the money in to cover the retail. It is not a lot of money; it is £5 million or £6 million. Celtic’s big advantage is getting an easy run at things like the Champions League and Europe. That is the big money and they are getting a run at that because we are not there to take it away from them. We can only really bridge that gap on the field.~

 

Will more soft loans be required this season?

No. The indications are that it probably won’t be necessary. Making the Scottish Cup semi-finals and the income we expect from that, which wasn’t in the original budgets, should see us through to the end of the season and then what happens depends on the manager’s assessment of what he feels he needs to do [in the] close season. That was one of the reasons for bringing Pedro [Caixinha] in sooner rather than later. We could have left it until the end of May when his contract ran out and we wouldn’t have had to pay compensation. Our view was that it was better to pay, get him in now and let him look at the players, see what he’s got and try to do the business before the qualifiers in June. We decided to pay the compensation rather grudgingly — given that we didn’t receive compensation when Mark [Warburton] left — but we thought it worthwhile.

 

Why didn’t you speak to Caixinha before he was appointed?

It didn’t happen because it wouldn’t happen, the way we run the club. The board of the football club [as opposed to the Rangers International Football Club plc] operates and runs their own deal so I certainly wouldn’t get involved in putting names forward. The selection process is something I would never be involved in and from a governance point of view it’s something I shouldn’t be involved in.

 

You met him on Wednesday: what did you think?

I liked him as a person. I like his confidence, his personality, his temperament, his mentality. We had a good discussion around the different dimensions he might bring, if we think that team has maybe been a bit one-dimensional over the last period.

 

Why did your relationship with Mark Warburton disintegrate?

With Mark it just changed a little bit towards the end because, quite frankly, I didn’t appreciate some of the comments that I felt were getting into the media that were emanating from Mark. So I wasn’t as confident having a confidential conversation with him.

 

What’s the aim for next season?

I still think that we must challenge Celtic, as I expected to do this year. Does it mean win the title next year? Of course it doesn’t. But I would like to challenge Celtic and see some distance between ourselves and Aberdeen and Hearts because investment will be made to do that. We are looking to get through the Europa League qualifiers.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Uilleam

[craig 5,199]

Discussing severance terms in itself isn't a resignation....although I remember us having that discussion on here already.

 

That was my first thought too. Discussing severance isn't a resignation. If that is the club's defense I cant see us winning it.

[ian1964 10,416]

Refreshing to see our club shunning media outlets which have treated our fans and club with absolute contempt.

 

"So as you sow' date=' so shall you reap"[/quote']