Mark Warburton’s self-serving interview still casts a dark shadow on the current Ibrox board.

Yesterday, I listened to a fascinating interview that former Ibrox boss Mark Warburton did with a podcaster. Normally, I wouldn’t bother with the ramblings of a former Ibrox manager, as most of what they have to say doesn’t particularly interest me.

In fact, I could do without seeing certain ones pop up on TV every other day. You know exactly who I’m talking about. But Warburton is a bit different, having been treated appallingly by the club, and since that was the focus of his chat, I wanted to hear his side of things.

First off, let’s be clear: there’s some revisionist history going on here. That’s par for the course with ex-managers trying to justify themselves, and Warburton’s no exception. He brings up Celtic’s form the year he was sacked, calling it the best year in the club’s history. That’s not strictly true; I can think of one season that was definitely better than the Invincible campaign. He also claims that Celtic’s dominance was the reason he lost his job.

This is pure nonsense. He was sacked because his team was miles behind us—not just in head-to-head results, but against other teams as well. His excuse that we were simply too good and blew them out of the water doesn’t hold up to even the lightest scrutiny. Still, there were parts of his interview that were compelling.

Take the circumstances under which he was hired, for example. Warburton claims that his mandate was to secure automatic promotion from the Championship, and I believe him.

They’d already missed their chance the previous season after a playoff disaster, so it’s not surprising that promotion was non-negotiable. He was handed the second biggest wage bill and the second most expensively assembled squad in the country, so that objective wasn’t exactly a stretch.

Warburton does indulge in some sleight of hand here, downplaying the spending by focusing on a single case, namely Nico Kranjcar’s salary. However, the reality is they had the second-highest wage bill and the second-most costly squad. There’s no getting around that. So, when he says promotion was a reasonable target, I agree.

Then there’s the target for his second season: playing good football and building on his first-year success. He mentions qualifying for Europe, though it’s unclear whether that was a second- or third-year goal—he’s a bit inconsistent there. Let’s assume it was part of his second-year mandate.

Once again, there’s some revisionism when he claims his team was second in the league and 18 points behind Celtic when he was sacked. In reality, his side was 27 points adrift and sitting in third, not second. But to be fair, in a strict sense, he was still on course to meet his targets—or at least, he believes he would have, had he been allowed to finish the season.

Warburton points to a key development after achieving promotion: a boardroom meeting where the tone shifted, and he started getting different demands from the higher-ups. He says there was a sudden coldness in the air, with questions and pressure he hadn’t faced before. He also notes that, in the weeks leading up to his dismissal, he hadn’t heard a word from Stewart Robertson, the club’s CEO. That would’ve been troubling in his position, and I’d have wanted answers.

In Warburton’s version of events, it was Robertson who texted him that fateful night, telling him to check his emails. There, he found a message stating that his resignation had been accepted. Moments later, he saw his name flash across the Sky Sports ticker, claiming that both he and David Weir had quit.

The speed with which Sky Sports had the story is highly suspicious. It suggests this was all premeditated, with the announcement coordinated to coincide with the message Warburton received. The whole thing reeks of underhanded tactics. Warburton maintains to this day that he never resigned and is adamant the club lied in their statement.

He says he asked for evidence of his resignation—an email, letter, or something official—but never received it. Warburton claims he didn’t sue because he didn’t want to get bogged down in the complex legalities of fighting a case in Scotland while being based in England.

I don’t quite buy that. I think he simply decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, especially after someone at the club (whom he doesn’t name, though I think he should) leaked his phone number. I can only imagine the abuse that followed, probably from the same people who demanded certain referees be banned from officiating their matches.

That’s the level this club operates at.

I can’t blame him for not wanting to make things worse by taking the matter to court, but personally, I don’t think I’d have let it go. Warburton claims that Nottingham Forest approached him after his sacking, though I think he’s embellishing a bit.

There were already rumours linking him to that job before he was thrown out. In fact, those rumours gave the Ibrox board the cover they needed to do the deed.

Despite his self-serving narrative, there’s little doubt that Warburton—and David Weir—were treated disgracefully. One of the more interesting things Warburton said was that the club prided itself on behaving with “dignity” and “respect.”

I find that hilarious, given who was running the show at the time.

So, who was in charge back then? Many of the same people running the club now. There were the Parks, John Gilligan, and, of course, Dave King at the top. Warburton is pointing the finger at them, accusing them of dishonesty and untrustworthiness, which is quite telling. When you consider this in the context of Scott McDermott’s deranged piece blaming James Bisgrove for the club’s current state, it’s hard to take any of it seriously. We know better than that. The people running the show aren’t particularly professional, and they certainly aren’t competent.

If Bisgrove is a spiv, then he took over from one. Robertson ducked Warburton’s calls, just as he and Gilligan were responsible for attacking journalist Graham Spiers when he highlighted Gilligan’s love for the bigoted anthem “Billy Boys”—something I wrote about last week.

This is the leadership now facing, and tasked with making, massive decisions. And as Warburton’s interview reminds us, their track record is one of slippery behaviour and shocking unprofessionalism. Warburton might have spooned up a load of self-justifying tripe in that interview, but it was still eye-opening, interesting, and instructive all the same.