Dodgy Dave isn’t trying to build alliances. So what is he trying to do?

Just when you think you’ve seen it all from the club across the city, something else happens that leaves you shaking your head.

It’s almost beyond belief.

When a club is as steeped in crisis as they are, the one thing they desperately need is a period of calm and stability. After the shambolic fortnight they’ve just endured, you’d think they’d be desperate for peace and quiet, finally able to focus on football. But Dave King, with timing that can only be described as terrible, has other ideas.

His latest move is one of the most ill-conceived in their 12-year history. At a time when the club should be regrouping and rebuilding, King has tossed a grenade into the mix, and now they’re left scrambling. He’s got the fans debating investment, the supposed long-term plan, and even the future of the manager, all when the focus should be on getting the club back on stable ground.

It’s no surprise, of course, that the club has flatly rejected his offer to return. They see it for what it is—an opportunistic attempt to serve King’s own interests, not those of the club. His track record of creating chaos and instability is well known, no matter how much his media allies or supporters might try to spin it otherwise.

In truth, King’s return would be the last thing they need as they attempt to transition from the wild, reckless spending of his tenure to a more sensible and financially sustainable future. And let’s be honest, it’s hard to picture any scenario where he would have been welcomed back with open arms, given the damage his previous stint caused.

But what’s truly bizarre here—and this is the part I didn’t dive into fully in yesterday’s piece—is that King didn’t seem to put much effort into his return bid.

If you’re looking to win over hearts and minds, you usually put together a polished PR offensive, rallying support and playing to the crowd. But King? He bypassed the PR altogether and went straight for the offensive, alienating people at every turn.

To break it down, if he truly wanted back in the Ibrox boardroom, he needed to cultivate allies. He needed people willing to give him a hearing, to consider his ideas seriously, and assess whether his return made sense. John Gilligan, one of the figures with whom King initially staged his coup to take over the club, should have been an obvious ally. But instead of using that connection, King’s first move was to suggest Gilligan should be ousted from his chairman role—so King could take it himself.

Instead of trying to build bridges with potential allies, he’s torched them. Gilligan should have been someone he could count on, but King’s aggressive power grab alienated him from the start. And it didn’t stop there—his comments about the wider board were equally nonsensical. Accusing them of leaving the club leaderless? It’s a disastrous approach to winning over support.

The aim seems clear—he’s trying to win over the fans. But that’s a dead-end strategy. Fans can’t put him back in the boardroom. They can’t elevate him to chairman. All he’s doing by rabble-rousing is creating more unrest at a time when the club can’t afford any. And the real decision-makers? They’ve been pushed further away by his behaviour.

King has gone out of his way to insult the very people whose support he would need to make this plan work. It’s baffling. From the outside, it looks like a self-destructive campaign. I doubt it makes any more sense from within the club either.

The media, of course, is lapping this up because some of them worship King. In spite of all the contrary evidence over the years they even believe the words that come out of his mouth.

They’ve always been pliable, eager to believe that King is a knight in shining armour, ready to ride in and save the club from its current downward spiral—the spiral it’s been on since it crawled out of Rangers’ grave and decided that it had to spend to match Celtic. But the media can only do so much. They can stir the pot, they can cause the Ibrox board trouble, but ultimately, the people running the club are the ones who decide if King has a place at the table.

If the Ibrox board decides to push back against King—and there are plenty of reasons for them to—they’ve got plenty of ammunition.

Dave King was publicly discredited by the City of London, who put the “black spot” on him after they found he’d broken the rules with his takeover. The South African Tax Court found him guilty of major fraud, and one judge famously labelled him a “glib and shameless liar.” His time in charge at Ibrox was littered with financial losses in the high seven and low eight figures, with the club racking up continuous deficits, even as Celtic enjoyed their greatest period of dominance.

For a man supposedly trying to take control of a football club, his strategy seems incomprehensible. From the start, he’s alienated the very people he’d need onside and waging war through the media has limited currency.

To make matters worse, he’s made it clear that he’s not willing to invest any more of his own money into the club which pretty much shoots whatever credibility he did have all to Hell. He’s asking for control while offering absolutely nothing in return, apart from a half-baked, ill-defined plan that nobody seems to understand, least of all him. Celtic’s latest accounts show the enormous challenge, one that needs more than a few silly platitudes.

So, it’s no wonder the Ibrox board rejected him without hesitation. As I said in my previous piece, it’s almost as if King never actually wanted control. So what are we to conclude except that this isn’t about reclaiming the reins of the club at all?

Which brings us to the real question: if King isn’t trying to take control, what is his true objective? What’s his endgame, and how does he plan to achieve it?

That’s something I’ll be exploring in greater detail tomorrow.