A NINE million pound boost to Rangers coffers from season ticket sales has provided fresh impetus to the club's plc's efforts to pursue a vital fund-raising share issue.

Rangers International Football Club plc is yet to formally apply for a listing on an alternative share trading market five months after it was delisted from the AIM stock exchange and nearly a month after it appointed a corporate adviser to kickstart the process.

The plan involves listing on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange Growth Market, which is aimed at smaller and medium sized companies, and is seen as a precursor to the club's crucial fund-raising plan.

Sources within Peterhouse Corporate Finance, the corporate adviser appointed at the end of July, confirmed that RIFC has to show it had at least 12 months' working capital to become listed.

It is understood that that is still to be worked out, but season ticket sales are expected to give the club plc’s case a £9 million boost.

A source at Peterhouse Corporate Finance said they could still not put a timescale on when the application would be made.

"It is a full application to ISDX and we have to do our due diligence on the company.

"There has been history as we all know, so we are making sure everything we do is correct. Timescales are something we are not sure about yet."

In confirming the requirement for proof of 12 months' working capital he added: "Obviously that is part of the plan of action going forward before the application goes in" and admitted season ticket sales "fills a hole".

Asked if he thought working capital was going to be a problem, he said: "No I don't. I think there is appetite out there. It will all happen with due process."

He added: "We will see how it goes."

Rangers said at the end of last month that they had sold more than 30,000 season tickets ahead of the new Championship campaign. Ibrox chairman Dave King set an ambitious target of selling around 45,000 season books for Mark Warburton's first term in the dugout.

Club insiders said in April that they hoped to list on the ISDX market saying it would cost the club less in fees and make it easier to win investment.

ISDX was a successor to the Plus platform, where shares in The Rangers Football Club plc, now in liquidation, were traded in the past and where shares of Arsenal Holdings plc, the holding company of the Arsenal Group of companies is listed.

While a listing was pursued, Rangers put in place arrangements to allow shareholders access to a matched bargain trading facility for their shares with JP Jenkins, one of Europe's biggest platforms the exchange of unlisted securities. Millwall Holdings plc and Sheffield United plc shares are traded through their facility.

Rangers were approached for comment.