Robertson puts wheels in motion

Photo by Jeff Holmes

New Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson says he hopes to sign off on Mark Warburton's first Ibrox captures within days.

The former Motherwell director this week joined Gers' new-look management team and has wasted no time getting down to work.

Warburton - appointed on Monday alongside assistant and former Light Blues skipper Davie Weir on a three-year deal - must rebuild a squad which has just nine senior pros remaining ahead of their Scottish Championship promotion bid.

He has already had a £200,000 bid for Irish defender Rob Kiernan accepted by Wigan, while the ex-Brentford boss has been linked with moves for former Ibrox youngsters Lewis Macleod and Danny Wilson.

Now Robertson has admitted he is hoping to see some business concluded soon.

He told RangersTV: "The wheels are already in motion. Mark and Davie are working hard trying to bring new faces in.

"Hopefully with a fair wind we can see some new faces next week.''

Robertson quit his role at Fir Park earlier this year after Les Hutchinson's fan-backed takeover.

But the new Gers chief claims his heart has always been at Ibrox.

He has been advising chairman Dave King and his board on financial matters since they took power back in March.

Robertson - who will take care of the day-to-day running of Rangers with new director of finance and administration Andrew Dickson - said: "I've been a Rangers fan for all my life basically so to get the chance to get involved in the rebuilding of the club is a huge honour and I'm very proud to have been asked to do it.

"It's obviously a big challenge and it's a big role. You ask yourself 'Are you up to it?' - but I think I am.

"Having come into the finance department and having learned a bit about the club and some of the challenge it faced, I realise there is a really good team of people still working at the club who have been through an awful lot of hard times I suppose and heartache over the past three or four years.

"They are all very committed so that, and the support from the board - I think I know the plans the board has for the club - made it a decision that was easy to make at the end of the day.

"My remit is really to try and sort out the operational side of the club and try and grow the operational side of the club again.

"A lot of staff have been taken out of the business over the last three years and myself, in conjunction with Andrew Dickson as a team really, is to get that side of the business working again.

"We need to get back to being a normal business, there has been far too much news about the business side of the club and really we are there to support the football side of the club.

"We are a football club and that's what it should be all about. So hopefully it will all be done quietly in the background, the low-profile stuff and really the unsexy stuff if I can say that.

"But if we can get all that working that should benefit the football side, should begin to generate more revenue for the club and we should get more value out of the contacts we have from our suppliers. We want to rebuild relationships with our suppliers and really just take the business forward.''