DAVE KING has promised to pour his money into Rangers quickly after being given the OK by the Scottish Football Association to move into the role of chairman.

 

King arrived in Scotland last night after the SFA had confirmed he had been deemed "fit and proper" to join the board of the Ibrox club and will attend tonight's SPFL Premiership play-off first leg with Hibernian at Ibrox as his first major act.

The game's governing body spent weeks poring over paperwork relating to his role as a Rangers director prior to administration in 2012 and his well-documented tax convictions in South Africa, before giving him the all-clear to push ahead with the takeover he staged at an extraordinary general meeting in March.

King has stated he will spell out his financial plans for the club "within the coming days" and revealed that he would have held back funds had the authorities failed to permit him to become the club's new figurehead.

"One of the things I said at the previous meeting when I was here six or eight weeks ago was that my ongoing investment depended upon me getting through the Fit and Proper.

"Now that it has been cleared, I am in a position to proceed and I would expect that to happen quite quickly.

"I always made it clear that, if I had no long-term future with the club, my investment was linked to that. I said that when I was here the last time that while I expected Fit and Proper to go through okay, we would have had to take a different approach if it didn't happen.

"I would not have walked away, but the situation would have changed.

"We would have had to look at how we would do it and I was very clear my ongoing investment requires an ongoing involvement."

Mike Ashley, the Newcastle United owner who holds a nine per cent stake in Rangers, has called for an EGM to have a £5million loan repaid in exchange for security held over the Murray Park training ground, branding and retail rights.

Ashley has also demanded that King and his directors explain why the club has been delisted from the AIM Stock Exchange.

King insists he has the finances to settle Ashley's debt, but will hold talks with his fellow-board members before deciding on which course of action to take.

It was always part of the plan, but it just a question of whether it is an appropriate thing to do," he said. "It is certainly not something I am even remotely concerned about."

King insists he will also require a few days to get up to speed with what has been happening inside Ibrox after claiming that he has had no involvement in the running of the club since his successful power grab.

"It has been a great pity that I have not been involved in what has been going on over the last couple of months and I think we are all delighted we can all get our feet under the table and start to make progress," he stated.

"The first step for me is to spend some time with the existing board members and management and get a good sense of what they have been doing over the last couple of months.

"With my situation, I had given an undertaking to the SFA that I wouldn't act as a shadow director, so we have been very precise.

"It is going to take me a couple of days to find out what has happened and, then, we are going to sit down and start planning for the future: get budgets in place and proper funding plans in place. We are going to carry out what we have promised to do for the fans."

King also made it clear in a statement issued on the official club website that he bears no grudges against the SFA over the rigorous procedure they followed in investigating his background.

"The Scottish FA's process has, understandably, been a long one given their recent negative experience with some of the previous board members, who were tasked with being custodians of the club," said King.

"It was essential that I dealt fully with all of the Scottish FA's questions and provided them with everything they required, no matter how personal, in order to prove that there were no barriers to me joining the board of Rangers International Football Club plc.

"I always maintained I would meet the fit and proper requirements of the Scottish FA once they had examined all the evidence and that is what happened.

"I said before that I must be the most scrutinised candidate in Scottish football history, but, as I also previously explained, I was happy to accept this given the importance to the club of having a board fully comprised of individuals with the club's best interests at heart and who are all approved by the Scottish FA.

"We finally have that and my colleagues on the board and I look forward to serving the club in the years to come.

"I thank the Scottish FA for their diligence in this matter and, now, it is time to look ahead and map out Rangers' future.

"However, I will elaborate on that in the coming days because there should be no distractions ahead of tomorrow night's match at Ibrox.

"This first leg of the play-off semi-final is absolutely crucial. I will be going to the match and I urge as many Rangers fans as possible to buy the remaining tickets to ensure a packed Ibrox.

"Together, we can help drive the team forward."