THE lines between football and finance are becoming increasingly blurred these days and that is certainly the case at Rangers. As they say, money talks.

Chairman Dave King covered everything from the Takeover Panel to the share issue, from the resignation of two directors to the appointment of Steven Gerrard, and everything in between, at a media briefing on Monday morning.

Here, King talks matters on the field and off it and where Rangers are heading under his stewardship and guidance of Gerrard.

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WHAT COMMITMENT HAVE YOU GIVEN TO STEVEN GERRARD IN TERMS OF REBUILDING THE TEAM?

DK: We have given a commitment that we will continue to invest in the squad and we will be a net investor still. We will provide additional net funds to him.

AND WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

DK: Steven and Mark (Allen) will tell us that because it depends how many players Steven wants to keep. We haven’t even discussed this. It’s not something he discussed with me. That’s something he would discuss with Mark and then he would come back to the board and say, ‘We’d like him…’

It depends on whether you transfer players out, whether you get them away from a wages point of view. So they’re going to have to figure that out and then come back and say, ‘This is our player plan.’ Right now, we don’t have a player plan because Steven hasn’t looked at it.

ARE YOU THINKING OF INCREASING YOUR OWN INVESTMENT?

DK: I have to do that. I’ve already done that in advance of next season. One of the factors involved is getting our licence and because we run a deficit deliberately, we’ve always got to satisfy the licensing authorities – the SFA and UEFA – that we have sufficient funds to fund our deficit. We’ve already had to give cash guarantees in advance of next season. Whether we raise money from the rights issue or not, I’m in for the money because right now I’m underpinning the cash.

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If there wasn’t a rights issue my money would go into the club. If there is a rights issue, less of my mine will go in. The club is fully funded for the next season. Every single club goes through the same process and, I repeat, because we are consciously and deliberately running at a loss, you’ve got to let the authorities know that you can fund the loss.

SINCE YOU CAME IN, YOU HAVE BEEN FIREFIGHTING VARIOUS ISSUES BUT THERE IS AN ACCUSATION THAT THERE DOESN’T APPEAR TO BE A CLEAR STRATEGY. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THAT?

DK: The real issue there is whether we debate these things in public. If anyone looks at what we have done over the past couple of years, we have been completely consistent.

I don’t think there is a single thing we said we’d do that we haven’t done. There have been accusations of not putting money in. We have put in a lot more than we said we would put in. We continue to do the right things. The strategies have been clear.

There is a preference for the media and a very small group of supporters to debate these things in public. We are not going to do that. Our strategies around managers have been very clear. We need managers that can win games.

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WHEN WILL RANGERS RETURN TO PROFITABILITY?

DK: Not in the foreseeable future. Because we are not going to run it to make a profit in the foreseeable future.

I would expect us only to start making a profit when we are back playing Champions League. Until that point, I think we are going to have to continue funding the deficit every single year.

YOU SAID YOU HAVE GIVEN CASH GUARANTEES FOR NEXT SEASON. IS THAT UNUSUAL AND HOW MUCH HAVE YOU HAD TO GUARANTEE?

DK: It’s not unusual in the sense that every club has to put a funding plan, you have to put your business plan for the next season to the authorities to get your SFA and UEFA licences. Every club does it. It’s known that we are running at a loss so the automatic question is ‘you’ve got a plan to run a loss, where is the money going to come from’.

And we say we’re going to have a rights issue and they say ok what if it doesn’t happen, we need to know the cash is there, so I provided the cash guarantees as I did with the Takeover Panel on the understanding that my guarantees will be drawn down if there is not a rights issue and if there is an issue those guarantees will come back to me. So basically I am funding it until such time as the other funds come into play, which is fine.

YOU SAID THAT UNTIL THERE WON’T BE PROFITABILTY UNTIL YOU ARE BACK INTO THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, BUT WOULD THAT NOT BE ENHANCED BY THINGS LIKE THE NEW RETAIL DEALS, KIT DEALS?

DK: What that has done is helped us reduce the deficit. The amount of money we’re having to fund is reduced by the better retail deals and of course it depends on transfer activity. Are we net buyers or net sellers? What happens, we’ll see. But basically it’s very, very helpful to us that the deficit we are funding becomes smaller because of these other revenue streams like the retail deals.

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YOU COULD HAVE WIPED OUT A LOT OF THE LOANS BY SELLING ALFREDO MORELOS IN JANUARY. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHY YOU CHOSE NOT TO SELL HIM AT THAT TIME?

DK: There were two reasons. One is we wouldn’t have wiped out the loans in any event because the understanding with the football management team is that if we sell players they get the money back to spend, so it was never going to be used to repay the loans. There is no intention of repaying the loans, it’s not going to happen, no loans will be repaid, so that wouldn’t have helped us in that regard. And secondly the manager made a decision not to sell him, it was completely up to the manager.

He knew that we could have sold the player but for Graeme’s own targets for what he wanted to do for the second half of the season if Morelos went out he couldn’t bring another player in and he said ‘I would rather have the player, if you’re not putting me under pressure to get the money I would rather keep the player’ and we said there’s no pressure, you make a football decision.

THERE ARE SEVERAL PLAYERS COSTING QUITE A BIT THAT AREN’T CONTRIBUTING AT ALL. IS THERE A NEED TO GET THEM OUT BEFORE YOU CAN BRING PLAYERS IN?

DK: There’s not a need because we have to win games. We’re certainly not going to say to the management team, ‘You can’t get these players in until you get these guys out.’ Overall, it’s better if you balance the books but we’re not going to restrict it.

It’s more important who we get in but we need to get the balance of getting in and getting out. However, we’re not going to say, ‘This guy we can’t get away and so we’re not going to replace him’. we’re hot going to do that and be that restrictive.

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WHAT IS THE TOTAL OF YOUR COMMITMENTS TO RANGERS SO FAR?

DK: In terms of commitments in cash, I am probably in for a bit over £30m at the moment. I don’t know where it’s going to go to. It depends how well Steven does next year.

WHEN YOU SEE WHERE RANGERS ARE AT PRESENT, DO YOU SEE THAT AS £30MILLION WELL SPENT?

DK: I look at where we are and certainly off the pitch there’s been huge progress. We wouldn’t have got Steven Gerrard if there wasn’t huge progress off the pitch.

The area where it’s not working well is on the pitch. That’s something we have to deal with. We have made managerial appointments that didn’t work out, but what do you do? We were under pressure to make an appointment and didn’t see an immediate appointment we felt was appropriate so we waited for months.

We think that was the right thing to do and it’s been justified with the appointment that we’ve made. It would have been difficult if it wasn’t but you make your decision and you have to see it through. And we remain very, very consistent with what we’re going to do with the club.

We will come back, we will win titles. There are set-backs, of course there are set-backs, but it’s our job as a board to deal with the set-backs and not be overly influenced by the noise level coming from the media and small minority of supporters who are just vociferous on these issues.

I mean, if we got to the Champions League final and lost it we’d be criticised for lack of ambition for not winning it. It’s the way supporters are but we are realistic from the board’s point of view and carrying on, despite the set-backs we’ve had. We analyse it and keep moving on.

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IS THAT £30MILLION EXCLUSIVE FROM OTHER MONEY THAT’S SET ASIDE?

DK: Yes. It’s cash guarantees that would be less if we could get other investors in. Basically we’re in a situation where I am saying ‘if we really have to do something and there’s a set-back and we need money then I’m underpinning it.’ I am in that position where I can at least provide the cash guarantees that I have to.

But I’m doing it on the hope that it’s not drawn on. That’s my preference, I’d rather other people put the money in right now to at least make progress. But I’m the Bank of First Resort, hopefully not Last Resort.

THERE MUST BE A LIMIT TO WHAT STEVEN CAN GET IN TERMS OF SPENDING POWER?

DK: It’s not like when Souness came in; we’re not going to sign the England captain, the England goalkeeper and the like. There is a limit to what any manager gets. There is a limit to what Real Madrid get to spend. There is always a limit.

But the question is does he, in discussions with us, look at the resources he’ll get to do the job and believe in what we’ve committed to that? He’s not going to come to us and ask us to buy Suarez. We understand where we are and we’re we’re not. But in terms of what he thinks needs to be done to the squad - to challenge and to win games and get three points every week - then we’ve committed to support that with the necessary funds.

What that will be depends on the player plan when he sits down with Mark Allen. He’ll say ‘I want these guys out, I’ll get nothing for them, I want to free up the wages whole this other player might get us a transfer fee.’ They’ll come up with a whole plan and then say ‘this is what we need from the close season.’ We’ll then say fine, approve it and provide the funds.