A RANGERS fans group accused tycoon Mike Ashley of turning his showdown meeting over the club's governance into nothing more than a "stunt" after none of his representatives made a formal appearance at Ibrox.

Mr Ashley and his MASH company forced the extraordinary general meeting to get the club to pay back within 10 days a £5 million emergency loan handed over in January.

The Newcastle United owner also wanted to use the meeting to raise questions about the way chairman Dave King and his fellow directors have operated since the South African businessman swept to power at Ibrox in March.

But Rangers director Paul Murray told hundreds of shareholders at the meeting in Ibrox: "MASH was asked if it would send a representative to today's meeting. No reply has been received on that point.

"The board are surprised that having called a meeting they have not seen fit to attend and explain themselves. It would appear MASH sees no reason to explain its conduct."

The Rangers Supporters Trust, a supporters shareholder group, raised concerns about the costs to the club of the meeting as well as an injunction brought by the Sports Direct supremo to prevent controversial details of contracts with the leisure retail chain from being revealed.

There was further anger from fans as the meeting heard that copies of the gagging order were served by sheriff officers to directors at their homes on Thursday night.

It left Mr Murray, fellow director John Gilligan and company secretary James Blair to rebuff many of the questions they faced from shareholders.

Mr Murray said: "Keeping shareholders and supporters in the dark is not something the directors are comfortable with but we must respect the decision of the courts.

"We will therefore have to refer any such queries to Sports Direct."

A Rangers Supporters Trust spokesman criticised the failure of Mr Ashley or his representatives to appear in person.

"This just indicates what a stunt this was," he said. "He didn't actually want answers they just want to cause as much trouble as possible.

"The whole thing is designed to make things as difficult as possible for the new board because Mr Ashley doesn't like the way they came and he doesn't like they way they are not doing what he wants.

"It is wrong to call the general meeting, while the club incurs the expense of that and the legal proceedings and then you don't even bother to turn up to answer, ask questions or anything,

"He has pretty much alienated the whole fanbase as far as I can tell."

Club chairman Dave King was not in attendance as he was in London on "club business".

Mr Murray told fans he was still hopeful of finding an alternative market for trading in Rangers International Football Club plc shares, after being delisted from the prestigious AIM stock exchange over two months ago.

No application has yet been made for RIFC to list on the ICAP Securities & Derivatives Exchange market. But Mr Murray told those at Ibrox that the board "feel an obligation" to shareholders to restore an alternative share trading listing following its removal from AIM in April.

Shareholders voted on Mr Ashley's resolution, with Rangers adding one of their own, calling for the retail contracts with Sports Direct - which see 75 per cent of profits from shirt and merchandise sales go to Mr Ashley - to be renegotiated.

But Mr Gilligan reiterated the board's stance that it was not in the current "best interests" of Rangers to hand the money back.

He said: "It's an element of shareholder trust that we are looking for - we feel it's in the club's best interests to not repay the loan."

The results of the shareholder vote are expected to be announced on Monday.

Sports Direct were unavailable for comment.