ALLY McCOIST has elected not to involve himself in the latest off-field row to engulf Rangers.

The decision by a coalition of supporters groups to endorse former director Dave King's request that they withhold season-ticket money until they have received assurances from the board could impact hugely on the club's financial standing. That would diminish greatly McCoist's ability to overhaul his squad in the summer but the Rangers manager felt it prudent at this time not to comment on recent developments.

Over the last few years McCoist has regularly found himself in the middle of crossfire between the supporters and the club's hierarchy but on this occasion he has chosen to concern himself only with football matters.

"I'm certainly not going to comment on what's happened this week," he said. "My only concern over the next 24 hours is us going to East Fife and getting a result. I think you can probably understand and appreciate my need for silence on this whole thing. I have been pretty open in terms of discussing everything really with the guys, but I think at this particular time, I just need to take a step back and let the fans know that the footballing side of things hopefully is in good hands with the staff and the players.

"It might seem a small thing to outsiders, but it's the one thing we can have a big bearing on. I'm the football manager and all I want to do is talk about football. I haven't had the opportunity to do that in the last two years. So I have made a conscious decision that I'm going talk about football."

McCoist insisted it was not difficult to ignore all the off-field turbulence. "It's easy to separate the football from the other stuff, because that's my job," he added. "For one reason or another, I've had to deal with the other side of things. But the football side is my job and what I get paid for.

"What's happened in the last couple of years has been unique, certainly to our club, in our country. I'm far happier talking about football. The last couple of weeks have been great because all we have spoken about is football, effectively for the first time in a couple of years."