DAVE KING insists Rangers should be signing players capable of challenging for a European berth during the January transfer window as he re-affirmed his belief the Ibrox rebuilding job will come with a £30million price tag.

The Light Blues board will provide boss Mark Warburton with funds to bolster his squad early next year as Rangers set their sights on the Championship crown this term.

Glasgow Times: 27/11/15 CLYDE AUDITORIUM - GLASGOW (L/R) Rangers manager Mark Warburton, Chairman Dave King and Vice-Chairman Paul Murray, John Gilligan, John Bennett and Graeme Park at the club's AGM (47748943)

Chairman King has previously claimed Rangers should look to mount a bid for the Premiership title next season and he is determined to attract as high a calibre of player to the club as possible.

He said: “I would be very surprised if we don’t make changes [in January]. We have indicated to Mark that if he identifies players, and it is really not as much about winning the league this year, the identification of players in January would be based on our prospects for the year after.

“We would have to bring in players that we thought were going to compete next season strongly in the Premier League and already looking towards Europe.

“We have chatted to Mark and said that if he wants to look at players he must bring them to us but the mandate is to make sure there are improvements on the squad and can compete at a high level. They should be long term solutions, not stop gap.”

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King joined his fellow directors at Rangers’ AGM in Glasgow yesterday as the Light Blues chiefs confirmed they will stump up to pay off the £5million loan to Sports Direct and provide the £2.5million Rangers need before the end of the campaign.

Glasgow Times: (L/R) Greg McKnight, James Blair, Andrew Dickson, Stewart Robertson, Rangers manager Mark Warburton, Chairman Dave King and Vice-Chairman Paul Murray, John Gilligan, John Bennett and Graeme Park at the AGM

And the Ibrox chairman believes it will take around £30million to get Rangers into a position to challenge Celtic once again as he, Paul Murray, John Gilligan, John Bennett and the Three Bears - Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor - continue help the club on the road to recovery.

He said: “I would still say that. I wouldn’t move away from that figure if I look at what I think we are going to have to invest.

“But clearly a lot of it depends on the success of Mark quite frankly.

“If you take where we are at the present time, it really was uncommonly successful, I think, for Mark and his team, at very, very short notice, to bring in the number of players that he brought in without needing a lot of preparation.

“For them all to have more or less worked that’s not always the case. So in a sense we are in a fortunate position right now in that we have got reasonably good value for the players that we have brought in.

Glasgow Times: Chairman Dave King at Rangers' AGM on Friday

“A lot of the overall requirement, particularly as we advance to competing in the Premiership and more importantly into Europe, we are going to have to look at different qualities of players and how much we will have to spend in that time is really going to depend a lot on the development and how successful Mark has been.

“So I would still say £30 million is a number that makes sense to me. But what it will actually be will depend on how well the man on my right does."