DAVE KING, the Rangers chairman, held court at Ibrox yesterday to discuss, among other things, his plans to put the assets of the club back in the old company, the deal struck with former manager Ally McCoist to end his period of gardening leave and his desire to push Celtic for the Premiership title next season. An abridged version of his interview with daily newspaper journalists is carried below:

THERE ARE RUMOURS THE CLUB DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH WORKING CAPITAL TO GET TO THE END OF THE YEAR. HAVE THERE BEEN ADDITIONAL LOANS PUT IN TO SERVICE RUNNING COSTS?

“There are already the loans of over £4m put in by myself and the Three Bears, which were for working capital and financing that took the club through the period from the end of last season to the beginning of this season.Funds would no longer be required now because of season ticket sales, which are of levels above what we were budgeting on.

“Additional funding would only be required depending on transfer activity into probably the end of the first quarter of next season, so we are very comfortably funded for the next six months. Myself and the Three Bears have indicated to the board and to Mark [Warburton] that we will continue to fund on the basis we are doing. The season ticket cash is not enough to get us through to the end of this season. We know that. The deficit we had looked at the previous board meeting five weeks ago is now less, because the season ticket position is better than we expected and we’ve had a lot of walk-ups and full attendances.”

THERE HAS BEEN A GENERAL ASSUMPTION THERE WILL BE A SHARE ISSUE BEFORE THE END OF THIS YEAR. IS THAT BEING DELAYED BECAUSE OF LOGISTICAL ISSUES?

“Until we get the audit out of the way, everything else is on the back burner. For me, that’s just admin. It doesn’t matter as far as funding is concerned. Whether we provide that through loans or new shares, I’m quite indifferent to it. The club will get the money it needs, whether I buy shares or give it a loan. I’m comfortable with that.”

IS IT DIFFICULT TO CONSIDER GOING TO THE MARKET WHEN THERE ARE POLICE INVESTIGATIONS AND IMPENDING COURT ACTIONS ONGOING?

“I have never regarded the ability of Rangers Football Club, where it is at the moment, to go to the public market in any way or get third party funds. I think it will still depend largely on the fan base and investors such as myself.

“Raising money in a public issue, say £2m to £5m, I would always consider it to be unlikely. I really don’t think Rangers, with the history and the state of the business, is something you should be putting other people’s money into. I would find it very difficult, as a businessman, to say to an institution in London that there is a business case for investing in Rangers.

“We have got to get through the audit and there are things behind the scenes which would still be problematic if I was sitting down with a financial institution in London with regard to them investing £5m in Rangers.

“They would ask me questions based on the recent history. Some I could answer, some I could give them my best guess, some I could say: ‘I think we are in control of the outcome and will get there’. There is a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes we don’t know. That is a reality of the legacy we stepped into.

“The event that we now call the regime change was the beginning of a process of recovery and we are delighted with the progress we have made on and off the field.”

ARE YOU CONCERNED ANYTHING MIGHT COME UP FROM LEGAL ACTIONS THAT MIGHT COMPLICATE WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO DO?

“It is not so much about the ultimate economic impact. That would be my true concern in terms of taking the club forward, the funding and sustainability. There are certainly a load of complications, though, with the legal actions as to where things might end up. There are a lot of messy things which still have to be dealt with.

“We have a vision going forward where I would like to see us taking oldco back out of liquidation and putting the assets back into oldco, having the old Rangers going back to the old company. We can’t do it while all this stuff is being sorted out.

“We are fairly senior commercial, business people behind the scenes and I think we can do that. I’m just hoping we continue to do what is right on the football field and leave us to deal with the other challenges as best we can when they arise. There is no way of me sitting down and saying: ‘This is the plan and this will all happen in this time.’”

WHY IS PUTTING THE ASSETS BACK INTO OLDCO IMPORTANT?

“I don’t think it is important. I just think it would be a good thing to do. I think it goes back to the tradition of Rangers. That is the company and it is a valid thing to take a company out of liquidation and put the assets back into it. It would be a good thing to do. I think the supporters would like it. It is not economically important, but it is something I would like to do.”

WOULD IT GIVE YOU SOME SORT OF CLOSURE? COULD YOU ALMOST PUT AN ASTERISK AGAINST THOSE YEARS?

“Exactly. You can never rewind what has happened, but you can try and look back in 100 years’ time and say there was a blip of four or five years in Rangers’ history when this happened and it was resolved to the norm.”

IS THAT FEASIBLE?

“It is practically feasible and legally feasible. We just have to get into the position where the liquidators have done everything they can. The club can then be rehabilitated. If you have all these claims floating around, where we don’t really know who is claiming assets and what they are, it will continue for a longer period.”

WOULD BDO [THE COMPANY DEALING WITH THE LIQUIDATION] HAVE TO PAY BACK 100p IN THE POUND TO OLDCO CREDITORS TO REVIVE OLDCO?

“You don’t have to pay 100p in the pound to creditors. If creditors accept a compromise and waive some of the debt, it could be 50p or 60p. That’s not a legal requirement, but the creditors have to be happy with the settlement.”

WOULD IT FEEL GOOD, MORALLY, TO SAY THAT RANGERS HAD CLEARED THOSE DEBTS?

“Yes. At the moment, if you look at the potential for the liquidation, with getting the money from Collyer Bristow plus potential other claims and if HMRC are taken out the picture, there is an opportunity for them to get 100p in the pound.

“People could conceivably get 100p in the pound. There weren’t many other creditors in the club. Because of the situation with the tax case – not through frugality or conservatism or the way the club was being run – the club basically couldn’t get credit because people knew about the big tax case, so the club was fiscally responsible by default.”

YOU HAVE EXPRESSED PAST REGRET ABOUT THESE THINGS HAPPENING. IS THAT PART OF THE REASON WHY YOU WOULD WANT TO BRING BACK OLDCO?

“It’s an emotional thing as well with the supporters. They hear all this ‘You’re not Rangers any more’ and ‘You are a new club.’ It would be nice to put all that behind us and say we had this unwanted period and now we are back to where we were. Is it really, really important in the way forward? I don’t think so. It’s more emotionally important than practically important.”

DOES IT HURT YOU TO HEAR THOSE JIBES?

“I don’t hear it as much as the fans do. I’m told about it, but I’m not in there all the time. It’s also part of being in Glasgow. It’s part of the history of the two clubs. Rangers fans, over the years, have been keen to have digs at Celtic sometimes when there has an option to do so. To me, that’s not really serious. But if we could do it I think it would be a nice thing to do.”

PEOPLE ASK WHERE DAVE KING’S MONEY IS. DOES IT DRIVE YOU NUTS?

“Not really. Clearly, I put money into the club. I did what I said I would do: fund the shortfall. We have gone out and got players and we are winning the league. We have got our season ticket money as well.”

DIDN’T YOU BOX YOURSELF INTO A CORNER WHEN YOU SPOKE OF FIGURES OF £30m BEING REQUIRED?

“No, because people are not saying that to me. Outside of this room, no-one ever says that to me. It only comes up when I have chats with [journalists] and I think you have your own reasons for continuing to bring it up.”

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO FANS WHO BELIEVE THAT ALLY McCOIST, DESPITE HAVING NOW SETTLED WITH YOU, HAS TAKEN MONEY OUT OF THE CLUB WHEN HE SHOULDN’T?

“To be a bit picky, you use the word ‘despite’. To me, there is no ‘despite’ about Ally McCoist. I think he was treated poorly. I think he was the manager of the club and not given the backing of his board. He was imposed upon by the board to take a salary cut against his contractual terms and conditions, which was unfortunate.

“He did all of that, so I think Ally has been treated very poorly by the club, quite frankly. I am very grateful that, because he is the Rangers man that he is, that he has been gracious enough to accommodate us by coming to a formal compromise. I don’t look on Ally as having done anything even remotely untoward so far as the club is concerned. I think he held his end up professionally. He was vociferous in standing up for the club when there were suggestions of league titles being taken away.

“Ally has remained a Rangers man right throughout this in the most difficult of circumstances for him, personally, because of his relationship with the club. He wasn’t a manager who had come in from a distance. Ally was part of the fabric of the club. I have nothing but respect for the way Ally has dealt with what must have been a very difficult situation professionally and, I think, personally.”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A DAY WHEN McCOIST CAN WALK OUT INTO THE CENTRE CIRCLE AT IBROX AGAIN?

“I would love to see that and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be there. I think he deserves it. Ally has been fantastic for the club and I am really looking forward to him returning to the club and being part of what we are doing going forward. He deserves to be there.”

HAS HE BEEN INVITED BACK TO THE DIRECTORS’ BOX?

“We are quite keen to get him back and get his mum back. We know his mum misses it and my mum misses his mum, so we want all the mums together.”

CYNICS MIGHT SAY THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE STARTS NEXT WEEK AND THERE MIGHT BE TV WORK FOR McCOIST AS A PANELLIST. IS THAT THE REASON FOR THE TIMING?

“From my perspective, I can say that’s definitely not the case. I’m not saying it’s not the case he will work on the Champions League. What I can say is that the discussions with Ally happened some months ago. Ally has shown no resistance at any time whatsoever to reaching some form of compromise. We just had to understand carefully just how such an agreement would work.”

COULD THIS NOT HAVE BEEN DONE A LONG TIME AGO? HE HAS HARDLY GIVEN UP FORTUNES GIVEN HOW LONG WAS LEFT ON THAT CONTRACT

“It could have been done a long time ago, but my priorities, quite frankly, were not with Ally. I think we had bigger cashflow and structural issues.”

HAVE EXPECTATIONS OVER SILVERWARE CHANGED AND COULD THIS TEAM WIN ONE OF THE MAJOR CUPS?

“If we could accelerate our entry to Europe by winning the Scottish Cup, that would be fantastic, but that’s hit and miss. We’re at an early stage and let’s use the enthusiasm over what is happening on the field to start early and plan for next season.

PAUL MURRAY HAD SPOKEN ABOUT A DIRECTOR OF FOOTBALL COMING IN. HAS THAT BEEN SHELVED?

“It’s gone for the moment while we are rebuilding the club. Mark’s eye for a player has worked. For us to go through the rebuilding stage and impose someone else on the management is very unwise.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR RANGERS TO BE REPRESENTED ON THE BOARDS OF THE SPFL AND SFA?

“It’s important because we want that level of influence and I think it’s important because it befits who Rangers Football Club are. I don’t want to be unkind in terms of the league, but I think we are seeing there is an inevitability that Rangers are on the way back. I think we’re seeing an acceptance from the authorities that having Rangers back is a good thing and we must have a serious seat at the top table.”