Fans group Club 1872 to pump £1m into Rangers

Rangers fan group Club 1872 has announced it will plough £1 million into the Light Blues at their forthcoming share issue.

The supporter organisation is already the club’s second biggest shareholder having previously invested a separate £1 million sum 12 months ago when buying out Mike Ashley’s Ibrox stake.

Now it has been given fresh backing from its 7,500 members to hand over another seven-figure sum as chairman Dave King looks to raise money to boost new boss Steven Gerrard’s spending plans.

Club 1872 director Laura Fawkes said: “A huge thank you to all our members for their regular donations and those in our membership and the wider support who made one-off donations towards our share issue campaign.

“These funds will not only put more shares into the hands of Rangers supporters but will go directly into the club to assist with the rebuilding process now under way under Steven Gerrard.

“For Club 1872 to raise this level of funding purely through donations from around 7,500 Rangers supporters shows the huge potential of the organisation.

“What we can achieve together will be determined solely by how many supporters take part. When we look at the number of supporters involved, we have only scratched the surface of the contribution that we can make to Rangers.

“We hope that investment into the club on this scale will show the thousands of supporters out there who have not yet joined us, that there are huge benefits of doing so.

“Club 1872 is still a young organisation and we are learning all the time but there is no question that if our support acts together we can be a formidable force, not only in pushing our football club back to where it belongs but also in making sure that the the damaging events of the past can never be repeated.”

No date has yet been publicly announced for the share issue but King did suggest back in early May it would take place some time this month.

The Rangers chief hopes the offer will raise £6million in new cash as well as allowing the club to convert some of the £17.7 million owed to King and his boardroom allies into shares.