‘It’s good the club has £5m in the bank’
£50m of HMRC debt. So £10m is not a catastrophic number.
‘If the agreements with Sports Direct, or whoever loaned the money, are commercially robust and gives them the right to withdraw the funds, they will be able to do that.
‘If they are legally binding and they do that then we will have to refinance that. We would be completely prepared to do that.
‘To me, that’s just noise level, because £10m going forward is well within the numbers of understanding we have to invest.’
Declaring Rangers will need £20m to stabilise — half of which he plans to put up personally — King’s first priorities are to sweep Ashley’s men from office, appoint a nominated advisor (nomad) and prove he is a fit and proper person to be non-executive chairman.
Under the terms of his loan, Ashley — or Sports Direct — has the right to nominate two directors to the Rangers board. King accepts that, but insists Llambias and Leach are finished.
‘ If Mike Ashley continues to maintain a substantial economic stake then there should be some representation from him,’ he continued.
‘But they would have to be independent and professional persons — and certainly not Llambias and Leach.’
King expressed disgust at demands from the duo for a year’s salary to leave without fuss and avoid the £80,000 cost of today’s general meeting.
‘I’m not surprised because I have had the background with them,’ he said.
‘ I had a call f rom Adrian Hadden of WH Ireland on Saturday morning s aying Llambias and Leach had asked me for a year’s severance pay. In re t urn f or t hat, t hey would resign. I said that was completely unacceptable.
‘Then I had another call at home on Saturday morning where Llambias suggested that if I agreed to pay them a year’s salary each they would then resign, not have the GM and save £80,000.
‘My response was that it was absolutely outrageous for the director of a company to be saying they could cancel the meeting and won’t have it — but only if they are paid a year’s salary. That i s absolutely outrageous. It is extortion and an abuse of their position.
‘They used their position as Rangers directors to say to me: “We will resign as directors and save you £80,000. But you must put it t owards our e xi t packages”. It was a trade-off I flatly refused.’
Relaxed about Ashley’s last show of defiance in the shape of a decision to draw down the second tranche of the loan just days before his new regime take over, King shrugged: ‘I think it’s good because that means the club will have £5m in the bank.
‘Quite frankly, I think Mike Ashley’s money should be in the club because he has contributed to the situation it’s in.
‘ I would much r ather it was Mike Ashley funds than anyone else’s.
‘I wouldn’t see t hi s as strengthening his position, if anything it is weakened. If you remember when David Somers went, he was on record as saying as chairman of the board he f elt t he Sports Direct contracts were actionable.
‘If he is correct and we go in and find out there is some kind of impropriety in the Sport Direct contract then clearly we would have a claim against Sports Direct because the club has been wronged.’