Dave King: Graeme Murty made decision not to sell Alfredo Morelos

Dave King says it was '¨Graeme Murty's decision to turn down an offer for striker Alfredo Morelos from Chinese Super League club Beijing Renhe earlier this year.

Eyebrows were raised when Rangers rejected bids, reported to be in the region of £10 million for the young Colombian.

“There were two reasons for that,” said King when it was suggested a fee of that size could have helped repay the loans he and other investors have placed in the club. “One is we wouldn’t have wiped out the loans in any event because the understanding with the football management team is that if we sell players they get the money back to spend, so it was never going to be used to repay the loans.

“There is no intention of repaying the loans, it’s not going to happen, no loans will be repaid, so that wouldn’t have helped us in that regard.

Rangers' Alfredo Morelos was the subject of interest from Chinese clubs in January. Picture: Craig Williamson/SNS

“Secondly the manager made a decision not to sell him, it was completely up to the manager. He knew that we could have sold the player but for Graeme’s own targets for what he wanted to do for the second half of the season, if Morelos, inset, went out he couldn’t bring another player in. He said ‘I would rather have the player, if you’re not putting me under pressure to get the money I would rather keep the player’ and we said there’s no pressure, you make a football decision.”