Charles Green again says Ally McCoist must win cup

Charles Green: Standing by comments. Picture: SNS

The Yorkshireman, who has controversially returned to the club in a consultancy role, claimed in a newspaper article on Saturday morning that the Ibrox manager must deliver a cup, as well as the league title, this season.

Hours later, Rangers crashed out of the Scottish League Cup to Forfar in extra time, with McCoist branding Green “an embarrassment” in his post-match press conference. McCoist added: “The self-acclaimed, straight-talking Yorkshireman has again let himself down. His contempt and total lack of respect for my players, for our football club, for our support and Scottish football in general is appalling.”

Green hit back yesterday, saying: “I was chief executive, he was manager, we both did our jobs. It wasn’t a great relationship and the whole world knows it.

“Let’s be clear about where we are, this club has got the second biggest wage bill in Scotland, it’s got the biggest history and reputation in Scotland, and the fans, quite rightly, expect better than what they saw last year.

“What I said – and I still stand by it – is that he’s got to win the league and he needs to win a cup. Otherwise, we are not getting value for money.

“I didn’t say it to put pressure on Ally and I didn’t say it to put pressure on the players. I said it because that’s what I believe. Anything less than that is not to the standards.

“People say: ‘You’ve put Ally under pressure.’ I’ll tell you what pressure is. Craig Mather is under pressure.

“He put £1 million into this club and then he gets his name put on the list that he’s going to be dismissed. That’s pressure.”

Green stepped down as CEO in April, amid claims of close links with discredited former owner Craig Whyte at the time of the Green consortium’s acquisition of Rangers’ business and assets last summer.

Reiterating that his “conscience is clear” over the Whyte allegations, Green added: “I will never, ever change from what I set out to do – to make sure Rangers are back at the top, playing in Europe. We should have been on a plane today going to Europe, like Celtic were. That’s where we’ve got to get back to.

“It will never get back there with the old guard. It’s never going to get back there with the Paul Murrays. It needs change. That’s what I started to bring at Rangers. That’s why the authorities didn’t like me because Charles Green is a problem to everybody.

“I’m a problem to Ally McCoist, I’m a problem to the FA, I’m a problem to everybody because I say it how it is.

“I don’t say it to be politically correct, I don’t say things to make friends. I say it because it’s correct.”

Green added: “The club is an absolute mess. I left the club in April to allow it to move forward, to get on, for me not to be involved because of the Craig Whyte issues.

“What I wanted to do was to see Rangers prosper and I think if you read Walter’s statement yesterday, he made the point that the board is completely dysfunctional and couldn’t agree on anything.

“That never happened in my time because I ran the company and I made the decisions and there are no decisions being made on that board recently because of the arguments between it.

“Of course, Malcolm Murray stepping down – all of these things are a tragedy for the club.”