Questions mount up as last of old guard leave Ibrox

Both had been keen to stay on when Craig Whyte bought the club last May, and although they explained their resignations in a statement about being “excluded from participating in corporate governance at the club”, they had never before expressed concerns about feeling marginalised.

The two men represented the last of the old regime. They were the only remaining members of the sub-committee set up by the previous board to scrutinise takeover offers, which stalled Whyte before then airing doubts about his plans for the club.

Of the other members, Alastair Johnston, the former chairman, and Paul Murray, the former director, left after the takeover, while Martin Bain, the former chief executive, and Donald McIntyre, the former finance director, were suspended and have both launched legal actions against the club.

Greig and McClelland were invited to stay on to provide some continuity. As non-executive directors at a football club run by a majority shareholder, neither man could have expected to be a significant voice in the decision-making process, but the timing and the reasoning of their resignation raises questions.

Why leave now? Why not seek clarifications of their roles with Whyte? Did they foresee troubling times ahead and wish to distance themselves from them? Rangers have two tax disputes outstanding -- one of which could force the club into administration -- while McIntyre resigned from the board only last week, before suing the club for damages. A BBC Panorama documentary on Whyte is also due to be broadcast on Thursday.

Nobody within Rangers believes these to be a factor in the resignations of Greig and McClelland, or the court cases that Bain and McIntyre are involved in. There is disappointment that the two felt compelled to stand down, but also a sense of pragmatism: Rangers have more pressing issues to deal with, on and off the pitch.

McClelland is a vice-chair of the European Club Association and is a respected figure in UEFA and business circles. As a former chairman of the club, and a director since 2000, he has been an influential figure. Greig carried more prestige, voted the greatest player in the club’s history, the captain who lifted the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1973 and a former manager.

He made his debut for Rangers in 1961 and apart from a seven-year spell following his resignation as manager in 1983, he has committed his working life to Rangers. Although he was more of a figurehead on the board, his presence was important to supporters, who continue to revere Greig.

Many will accept that more experienced businessmen are needed to run the club at a difficult time, but Greig was a connection with the fans, and also an ambassador.

Greig often spent time at Murray Park, where youth players, and their parents, appreciated his involvement. He was also the manager who signed Ally McCoist and Ian Durrant, now the manager and the first-team coach respectively, and it was Kenny McDowall, the assistant manager, who took on the media duties yesterday ahead of tonight’s friendly against Liverpool.

Most Rangers fans have accepted Whyte as the club’s only saviour in the face of a complex and potentially draining tax dispute, but they took reassurance from the presence of Greig and, to a lesser extent, McClelland.

Gordon Smith, the former Rangers striker who is now director of football, now assumes that role in the fans’ eyes, but the upheaval was something the club could have done without.

The resignations may have little or no direct impact on the running of the club, and individuals will always move on in a takeover, particularly one as protracted and, at times, as messy as Whyte’s buy-out of Sir David Murray.

Greig and McClelland may well simply have felt disenfranchised. Yet it still leaves questions, and a sense of unpredictability at Ibrox.

It is not the way that Greig, or the supporters, would have wished to see his years of service to Rangers come to an end.