Craig Mather, the Rangers chief executive, has been in South Africa to hold discussions with Dave King, the former Ibrox director.
A source in the city of London revealed that Mather flew out to talk to the Glasgow-born businessman about resuming his involvement in the Ibrox club.
King has long maintained that the current regime at Rangers will need further investment because of the business plan put in place by Charles Green, the former chief executive, being unlikely to return Rangers to the top flight with enough resources to immediately challenge for the title. Having been unable to bid for the club last summer due to issues with the South African tax authorities - they have now been fully resolved - King is able to invest freely. Having been a director before, he would be unlikely to return to Ibrox for anything other than a role on the board.
The businessman, who invested £20m in Rangers under Sir David Murray, has been prepared to wait for the right moment before making his move to buy either a controlling or ownership stake in the club, having identified the eventual return to the top flight as the moment when fresh investment would be crucial. Mather is thought to believe that King would be the right figure to help the club through a difficult time, since he is a lifelong fan of Rangers and widely respected by the support.
Sandy and James Easdale, the owners of McGills buses, either own or have proxy control over almost 25% of the shares in Rangers International Football Club, while a group of institutional shareholders with almost 28% previously backed the requisition of an emergency general meeting to replace members of the board. That was withdrawn, but conflict remains.
Supporters are currently at odds with the board, with protests having grown in intensity in recent weeks. A battle is looming at the annual general meeting on October 24, with a group of shareholders pushing for the board of directors - Mather, the finance director Brian Stockbridge, and the non-executives Ian Hart, Bryan Smart and James Easdale - to be voted off and replaced by the one-time Rangers director Paul Murray, the former Ibrox chairman Malcolm Murray, and two Rangers-supporting businessmen, Scott Murdoch and Alex Wilson. The Ibrox club has also been without a chairman since Walter Smith stood down last August.
The current board has sought to block the director nominations, though, and a hearing at the Court of Session on Monday will rule on whether or not the nominations of four replacement directors should be added to the order of business of the agm. This could, in turn, lead to the agm being delayed to allow shareholders enough time for due consideration.
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