Dave King reveals his big Celtic fear fuelling Rangers return bid as he disputes Graeme Souness gap claim

Dave King admits he fears Celtic overtaking Rangers as the world’s most successful club.

The Ibrox club have boasted of that global status with branding around the stadium but their arch-rivals drew level with the rivals last season on 118 major trophies and are one short of equalling their world record 55 haul for domestic league titles.

King launched a bid for a sensational return to the Light Blues to replace John Bennett who is stepping down as chairman due to health reasons with former director John Gilligan – who helped King rescue the club in 2015 – taking on the role on an interim basis.

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South Africa-based King wants to put a two-year plan in place and admits he has real fears over this season hitting the skids in the next month when the Europa League campaign gets underway. Rangers legend Graeme Souness recently said on talkSPORT that he didn’t believe there was a huge gulf between the Light Blues and Celtic but King appeared on the same radio station to dispute that.

He said: “I have the utmost respect for Graeme and he knows a lot more about football than me but there is a very significant gap on and off the pitch between us and Celtic. My fear, longer term as a fan, isn’t about stopping 10-in-a-row which was my previous target. One thing we do hang onto is we are still the most successful club in the world and if we slip too long we might lose that as well.

“There is a level of urgency. This season is slipping. I’m talking as a supporter. It will be very challenging with European games coming up and they could be in a very difficult place by October. There’s no leadership. There are two main categories. In the time we went through the rebuild of the club when it had been hollowed out by the Easdales and the Mike Ashley situation. We had to rebuild all the policies, procedures, recruitment, scouting. Everything in the club was broken and we got it to a point where were able to make decisions and take some management risks.

“At least there was a solidarity and progress was being made and that got us to 55 which was the target. My biggest disappointment is to see the areas where we have gone backwards where policies that were in place are no longer complied with by the present board such as recruitment of players and how we write commercial contracts with players.

Former Rangers chairman Dave King
Former Rangers chairman Dave King -Credit:SNS Group

"All of the things we were very careful with have just been abandoned - managers allowed to do their own thing with no oversight from the board. The limited resources we had in competing with our neighbours had to be applied very smartly. We did the opposite - we’ve actually wasted money.

"There was a great opportunity with the American consortium. We were trying to get substantial funds into the club. I’d seen proof of funds and negotiated with them in a business basis and it was rejected by Douglas Park, not even by the board, on the basis the board would put the money in and had everything under control. Clearly that hasn’t happened. So not only have we failed to take in new money that was vital to closing the gap but we’ve also wasted the limited resources we did have and wasted the value of the Europa League run and nice transfer with Nathan Patterson and Calvin Bassey which was a windfall for the club."

King was asked by ex Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan: “Is this a call to action, Dave? You presided over Rangers for a difficult period of its time and left for your own reasons. Is this a call to action in terms of people getting their a**** in gear or do you want to shake it up and take control.”

He said: “It won’t be comfortable for some who are in place right now. Some of the incumbents wouldn’t like it. They know how I work. I’m quite direct and expect results quickly and people to put their shoulder to the wheel. I can imagine some within the club might be more comfortable but I am the largest shareholder so have an economic interest to get things right and secondly at least I have a track record.

“It needs someone to come in quickly. It needs someone with institutional experience and not someone who will spend months. There’s two major objectives - one to reintroduced the operational policies that have gone missing and to find new investment. It needs a proper plan to bridge the gap. I have no idea what I will find but hopefully it’s not as bad as when I went in years ago.”

Jordan concluded: "I am very surprised he is doing this in the public domain. I am very surprised he wants to make these statements in the public domain. He is a 15 per cent shareholder, what he can actually do is is really nothing. Unless he can co-opt other members of the board to put him into a position of influence.

SImon Jordan
SImon Jordan

"Maybe he has already got those in the bag. Maybe he already got into a position where he can find the pre-requisite shareholder support to reinstall him back into a position of influence. And then, clearly, we need to understand what he is going to do with that. What is the malaise? Is the malaise missed opportunities? He said it's because they have bought badly, they haven't taken advantage of opportunities, the cash they got from the Europa League, they deployed it badly, all of those things."