Green Hails Easedale and Ashley

Pic: Jeff Holmes

Former Rangers chief executive Charles Green has told the club's supportersthey should thank Sandy Easdale for his Ibrox involvement. Green was speaking from a London hospital bed after having knee surgery during a bizarre interview with Sky Sports News' Jim White and even broke down as he defended his Ibrox track record. The businessman - who was forced to quit as Gers CEO after it was alleged he had links with former owner Craig Whyte, claims he denied - also quashed rumours that he had been arrested in France as part of police investigations into his Rangers takeover in the summer of 2012. However, his main message was to the fans as he urged them to support Easdale and his ally Mike Ashley over Dave King, who hopes to rout the board using a shareholder vote. Backing the current regime, Green even made reference to the respective criminal convictions of both King and Easdale. King was forced to pay back £44million as he admitted to around 40 income tax charges in South African last year, while Easdale was jailed for 27 months in 1997 for a £1.5million VAT fraud scheme. Green said: "All Sandy Easdale has done is put his hand in his pocket, pull money out and put it into the club. And yet the fans are slaughtering him. "Now here we are with Dave King. Sandy has got one charge and one conviction against him. Dave King has admitted to 40 with the South African authorities. "So we are going to swap Sandy Easdale, who has put money in, with Dave King, who hasn't. Where's that moving the club forward?" The outspoken Yorkshireman also praised Newcastle owner Ashley. He said: "The current team are doing a great job. Maybe the fans don't like them, maybe they don't like Mike Ashley. "I don't like Mike Ashley but that doesn't mean that he's not the right man for the job. "I actually do think his team are the right people. Derek Llambias, he might have had a charisma by-pass, but actually he is a good guy doing a job. "He did it at Newcastle, I met him, I took Derek Llambias into Ibrox when we did the deal for the naming rights. And there's a whole story behind that as well. "The reality is that these people have done nothing but good. They haven't taken anything out of Rangers, they have put money in.