DAVE KING has insisted that Mike Ashley holds no threat to his grand plan to rebuild Rangers and has branded the Newcastle United owner's request for a shareholders' meeting to recall a £5m loan as "a bit of a nonsense".

Ashley, who holds almost nine per cent of stock in the Ibrox club, has demanded an EGM to demand the return of the funds provided to the previous board in exchange for security over branding, retail rights and the Murray Park training ground.

He is also seeking answers over the club's delisting from the AIM Stock Exchange following King's takeover in March.

However, the incoming Rangers chairman, who will be officially crowned at a board meeting on Friday, insists he is more interested in dealing with the Ashley loan as part of a wider set of agreements with leisurewear firm, Sports Direct.

"I do expect it (the EGM) to go ahead," said King. "The shareholders cannot vote to pay the loan back. The general meeting is a bit of a nonsense in that sense, I think.

"The shareholders can't tell the board how to behave. The board will make a decision based on the best interests of the club.

"I regard that specific resolution as a non-event. For shareholders to give a mandate or instruction to the board, it requires a Special Resolution.

"This is not a Special Resolution. It is just an ordinary resolution, so it is the type of thing that, if there was a vote from shareholders saying the money should be repaid, it is certainly something the directors should think about, but there is certainly no obligation to do so.

"I see a need to renegotiate the holistic relationship that should incorporate what happens with that loan."

It is clear, though, that Ashley will not be getting his money back any time soon.

"I would be surprised if that happened initially," he said. "The Mike Ashley loan situation is part of a bigger and broader relationship.

"My personal view is that the whole Sports Direct/Ashley relationship is an integrated, holistic relationship. It is not just about the loan account."

Asked how troublesome Ashley, who still possesses a right to nominate two people to the new board, might yet prove to be to his blueprint for the future at Rangers, King was clear.

"On a scale of one to 100, it doesn't get up to a one as far as a threat is concerned," he stated.

"I think, ultimately, he will be out of the picture. He has put money into the club and the club should be grateful for that. Without the £5m loan, the club would have had some difficulties.

"I think the money was important to the club at the time. Given the changed circumstances, where we are not trying to shrink the club and run it like a minor club, we have to change the relationship."

Ashley's Sports Direct firm has a strong grip on the merchandising deals at Ibrox with reports issued by the Union of Fans group last year stating that Rangers were only receiving a share of income from retail of around 7.7 per cent.

"There are legal relationships in place and you cannot just walk away from legal relationships," said King. "What we will seek to do is try to renegotiate that commercial relationship because, in my view, it is not a balanced relationship and is something that has to be dealt with quite smartly.

"I will not necessarily meet with Mike Ashley. I think the relationship is with Sports Direct. They will decide who they want to meet, but the club should be meeting with Sports Direct and trying to map a better way forward in the interests of the football club.

"I would agree it is not great and it is something that has to be dealt with, but I don't think it is terrible either. The Mike Ashley situation is very different from some of the other history of the club.

"You have got a man, he's a businessman and he has been very, very aggressive. He has managed to put in place a deal that is very favourable to him. He has every right to do that and it is our job to see if the club's interests are protected.

"It is really just business. There is nothing personal about it. It is just a question of what is right for Rangers Football Club."

Paul Murray, who has been operating as interim chairman, has staged a meeting with Ashley and representatives of Sports Direct and attempted to explain that Rangers supporters simply will not buy merchandise in large numbers while the current contracts stay in place.

"I met Mike Ashley and his colleagues," said Paul Murray. "I made the point to him that Rangers were selling 500,000 shirts a year 15 years ago. The market has changed a bit in that period. We are now selling less than 50,000 shirts.

"That is partly down the market, but also down to the fact the fans are disengaged from that activity, believing there is too much of the share of the profits going to parties outside of the club."

King plans to raise funds through a new share issues before putting the club on the ISDX Stock Exchange, but he is expected to provide further short-term funding in the wake of the revelation that the Three Bears group of Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor have stumped up a further £1.5m to keep the business operational.

"There has been additional investment made and there will be further investment made in the coming days," said Murray. "We cannot simply issue shares tomorrow, so we have to have short-term funding until we can have the process of raising capital through a share issue, which would probably coincide with the listing of the club on the ISDX exchange.

"The same parties reinvested and Dave's family, I guess, will reinvest in the coming days."

King claims he lost £20m in investments in Rangers while he was a director in the ill-fated David Murray regime and insists he is ready to spend even more than that to restore Rangers as the pre-eminent club in Scottish football.

"I have already lost £20m," he said. "I am expecting to invest more than that, but not to a level that is getting attention from my family with regard to their future life being threatened.

"We are going through the budget at the moment, but it is very, very clear that the club will need fairly substantial funds in the short to medium term to bridge the revenue gap before we get back to the Premier League.

"The exact amount and timing, to some extent, will depend on what happens over the next week.

"I think I have gone on record before as saying that I estimated (Rangers would need) about £30m. I would still say the number of £30m is probably what I think the gap would be assuming normal commercial revenue is resumed and the fans start supporting and we get the normal amount of season tickets we would expect.

"Our first year back in the league, we will be expected to compete with Celtic. That is our natural competition. Within the first year, we will hopefully have Europa League income."

Murray has insisted, though, that there are no dreadful new skeletons tumbling out of cupboards inside Ibrox as the new board's accountants sift through the books.

"A lot of the things that have happened at Rangers have been made public already," said Murray. "There is a wide range of issues and, literally, every part of the club is broken whether it be the commercial side or the youth development side.

"I don't think there is anything we have come across that is catastrophic, terminal or threatening to the club's existence. It is just a question of working through these issues and recapitalising the club."