Dirty war underway at Ibrox as details are leaked of Gerrard’s boardroom fall out

On Friday morning Dave King was sharing his anger with Herald readers over the betrayals of the Ibrox board of directors. 

Playing Celtic in the Sydney Super Cup was the lead issue but the details also highlighted the loss of Steven Gerrard as being the fault of Douglas Park and friends. 

PR man David Graham might be able to keep the moon howlers on Ibrox fan media sweet but he is no match for Jim Traynor who knows all the buttons to press in any campaign. 

Every time that the Ibrox board issue new shares the notional paper value of King’s stake in the club is reduced with the prospects of Club 1872 raising £13m for their hero and mentor fading by the week. 

Following on from King’s comments to the Herald the Scottish Express has unearthed details of Gerrard’s departure- helping to build a jigsaw of blame pointing towards Douglas Park and those influencing the Ibrox chairman. 

The online Express is now led by Lindsay Herron, someone who shared press boxes and foreign trips with Traynor for the best part of 20 years. 

On Friday afternoon they discussed the background to Gerrard’s autumn move to Aston Villa: 

Scottish Express Sport understands he had a budget of £4million – plus the promise of more if Rangers qualified for the group phase of the Champions League. 

Gerrard, we understand, decided to put all of his eggs in one basket and wanted Hibs striker Nisbet. 

In the previous January, the Easter Road side had rejected a bid of £3.2milllion from Birmingham City for the striker that had cost them £300,000. 

All summer it seemed Nisbet was a big target of Celtic – but Gerrard had decided he was a player who could make Rangers better in their bid to defend the title. 

He put his proposal to the Rangers board and wanted to go all in to land Nisbet, who, it is understood, would have been very keen to open up discussions. However, he was given no encouragement and the seeds were sown. 

Instead, he brought in John Lundstram, Fashion Sakala and Nnamdi Ofoborh on free transfers, while Juninho Bacuna arrived from Huddersfield. 

Of course, the second aspect of the budget plan didn’t work out as the Ibrox men were rather tamely knocked out of the Champions League by Malmo, who beat them home and away. 

Gerrard, we believe, decided at that juncture that his time at Ibrox would have to draw to a close. 

There is clearly a campaign underway aimed at undermining the Ibrox board, the Express story won’t be the last for PR guru Graham to handle as some Ibrox-friendly publications fire criticism of the current custodians while a past chairman bears a grudge.