NEW Rangers chairman Dave King is hoping Ally McCoist may consider making a personal sacrifice to help ease the club's financial predicament.

The former manager has earned more than £300,000 since being placed on gardening leave last December, a week after he resigned and stated his intention to work his 12-month notice period.

With the new Ibrox board having to accept an additional £1.5m loan from King to help with working capital ahead of a future share issue, he concedes saving on McCoist's salary would help with the club's short-term funding difficulties.

The South African-based businessman, however, also emphasised that McCoist was fully entitled to continue drawing a salary each month until the end of his contract in December.

"The club owes Ally as much as he owes them in terms of the satisfaction he has given fans over the years," said King who will be confirmed as chairman at a board meeting this morning.

"He has a contract, it was committed to and the club must respect contracts. It is up to the club to come and maybe satisfy him or him to come to the club.

"But there is no complex issue to be resolved, no dispute with Ally McCoist. The question is, 'can we now convince him now we have some stability?'

"Maybe there is an opportunity for us to go to him and say, 'Ally, we are here, we are staying, would you assist us in some way going forward?' But we must understand he would be doing us a favour. He owes us no obligation to compromise on his legal position."

King hoped there would be no ill-feeling from the supporters towards McCoist should the one-time striker elect not to forego the remainder of his contract.

"Ally is an absolute icon and legend at Rangers and I would be very surprised and disappointed if any of the discussions we had with him resulted in any change to that status. Or if he felt in any way unwelcome, because we will make him feel extremely welcome when he comes back to the club."

The director Paul Murray praised the work done by Stuart McCall and insisted he would be a leading candidate as a possible permanent manager.

"I think Stuart has done an unbelievable job in terms of stepping in and being really selfless - coming into quite a difficult situation it could easily have blown up," he said. "He deserves a lot of credit for that and so does Kenny Black. Stuart will definitely be a very strong candidate. But the board, given it is such an important decision, have an obligation to look at other options."

Murray played down the prospect of Dick Advocaat returning to the club after the outgoing Sunderland manager was spotted in Glasgow recently.

"I've not spoken to Dick - I think he was actually at Murray Park for other reasons," he added.

King also dismissed a threat from Sandy Easdale, the former chairman of Rangers' football board, to take legal action against the incumbent directors for removing the club from the listings of the AIM stock market.

"I have a little file of the number of times Sandy Easdale has threatened litigation against me. I really don't take that seriously," he said.

Murray revealed as well that the club had reached an agreement this week to terminate the contract of Derek Llambias, the former chief executive, and ex-finance director Barry Leach.