John Gilligan has seen what a club in crisis looks like. Nine and a half years ago to be precise when he – alongside Dave King and Paul Murray – rode to the rescue of Rangers and freed them from the suffocating stranglehold of Mike Ashley.
Back then he swept into the boardroom of a skint club not even in the top division with dilapidated facilities, a second-rate squad, a manager on gardening leave and a host of legal issues waiting to be taken on as the dust refused to settle on the financial meltdown of 2012. No wonder the man who returned to his beloved Ibrox as interim chairman last week had absolutely no hesitation in smacking down his old comrade King ’s claims that the club was again “in crisis”.
Gilligan’s temporary tenure – which he hopes will last only a couple of months – may be stacked full of priorities with finding a new chief executive officer right at the very top. But even the pressing need for new figureheads, his admission that the financial gap with Celtic is “considerable” and the general feeling of dismay among the support after a series of summer setbacks doesn’t come close to the low Gilligan felt when he first took position back in 2015.
The fact that, at 72-years-old, he has been tempted back into such a stress-filled position probably attests to that. Speaking publicly for the first time since his appointment, Gilligan said: “It is almost ridiculous to compare it. It would make my cry rather than laugh.
“You cannot describe how low we were in 2015 and what we inherited in terms of all sorts of aspects of the club. It is unrecognisable since that day. Listen, every day at Rangers Football Club is a challenge, the level of expectancy is enormous. As a fan I am part of that problem. But it is just ridiculous to compare it, to even begin to compare it.”
The former MD of Tennent Caledonian Breweries is well aware of the chasm that’s opening between his club and that which lies in the shadow of his former workplace in the east end of Glasgow. Celtic posted an eye-watering set of financials last week showing they had £77m in the bank with tens of millions more set to pour in from this season’s Champions League campaign.
Gilligan’s plan to bridge the gap is simple in explanation. But extremely difficult in practice. He said: “Player trading is the biggest success and qualification for the Champions League. It is a kind of Catch 22 – player trading gets you income, Champions League gets you income.
“When you fail to get it it is difficult because Scottish football’s level of support, TV, sponsorship, you just can’t compare it to England’s. So it is always a challenge. It’s all about the squad and bringing in players and winning your matches and moving forward.
“History tells you that sometimes we are ahead, sometimes Celtic are ahead. At the moment we are chasing. There is no argument there, I am not stupid enough to say otherwise. But we will keep chasing.”
It’s one thing chasing but punters demand their arch rivals be caught. And soon. In an explosive statement last week King calculated Rangers would need £50m to meet short and medium objectives – claiming those figures would “never be raised under the current board structure”.
But Gilligan said: “I don’t think you can put a number on it. The gap at the moment is considerable. But you just have to win your games, get back challenging for the top spot and if we get into the level of Europe that we hope to get into, then the gap can change quite quickly.
“There is fresh investment coming in to the club. In fairness Dave is talking about fresh investment – but he doesn’t want to invest. I am not quite sure where he means the investment is going to come from.
“There will be investment. The current investors have invested considerably over the years and are willing to do so again.
“We are open to anyone who approaches us on investment. We get approaches from all over the world from various sources. But it has to be the right people and the right conditions and for the right amount of shares. We don’t want one person owning the club.”
Stability was a word that punctuated Gilligan’s responses yesterday. The most important move in the coming weeks he said is to appoint a new CEO Bisgrove’s exit for Saudi Arabia back in May was about to shake Ibrox to the rafters thanks to his part in the delay to the Copland Road stand upgrade which saw the club decant to Hampden.
They may be back home now. But there’s no sign of a new CEO at the helm yet. Gilligan insists they are well down the road with recruiting a “top-level candidate”. He said: “We are moving quickly on it. Recruitment in any walk of life is of the moment. The person needs to be multi-faceted and good at everything.
“They need to have a strong business acumen, experience, they need to have ran businesses where there’s pressure and a need to deliver. They need to be a good communicator. And they need a tremendous work ethic because it goes without saying it’s unbelievably difficult.”
Rangers returned to Ibrox for Saturday’s Premier Sports Cup victory over Dundee – with the Copland Road end remaining shut pending final approval.According to the interim chairman a full capacity return is “imminent”. He said: “We are really hopeful. But we’ve got to be respectful of local authority approval etc, fire and insurances – it’s all the little things now. Structurally, we are pretty much there.
“I think it will be huge. It’s been a real tough time. I have to thank Mike Mulraney and Neil Doncaster for helping us and allowing us to play at Hampden. But this is home, and we’re back. It’s a phenomenal difference.”