NEWCASTLE United owner Mike Ashley is the kingpin at Rangers, but on March 4, all that could all change.

Former Rangers director Dave King, the biggest single shareholder in the club's controlling holding company Rangers International Football Club plc with 14.57% has won a general meeting to remove Mr Ashley four boardroom allies to be replaced by himself and two others.

Former Rangers director Dave King has said he was prepared to work with the Three Bears consortium to rescue the business. Together they hold 38.1% of the shares in RIFC.

But even if Mr King is successful, Mr Ashley, the Sports Direct owner and founder will still have rights to continue to have a stronghold on the club.

Currently his allies pull the strings at Rangers International Football Club plc, the controlling holding company and all the subsidiaries, with his men in the positions of power.

But the King revolution would not affect Mr Ashley's control of the club's retail operation Rangers Retail Limited, which handles the club's lucrative merchandising including shops and has rights under licence to use the club's trademarks and famous crests.

Recent developments mean he now has over 75% of that business and an equivalent share of the revenues.

And Mr Ashley who has an 8.9% stake still has rights through a £10 million emergency club loan to two nominated directors on the board.

His alliance with shareholders such as Sandy Easdale, the chairman of the board of the subsidiary operating company The Rangers Football Club Ltd gives him a potential veto on major board decisions on investment that require special resolutions put to shareholders.

Mr Easdale alone has voting rights over around 26 per cent of the share capital. And resolutions can be rejected by 25 per cent of the vote.

Mr King knows he has to talk to Mr Ashley about the emergency loan.

Then there is the spectre of Craig Whyte, the discredited Motherwell-born venture capitalist who orchestrated the oldco into insolvency and faces court charges over his alleged fraudulent takeover of the club in 2011.

Whyte and associate Aiden Earley are locked in a legal battle central to the ownership of Rangers. Whyte continues to insist that he was the man behind the Sevco 5088 consortium that bought the liquidated assets of Rangers and that front man Charles Green was in cahoots with him.