Dave King has told the inside story of an attempted bid for Rangers from Saudi Arabia.
Gers have just been taken over by a US consortium headed up by health tycoon Andrew Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises, the investment arm of the San Francisco 49ers.
It was finally rubberstamped last week as the Ibrox club made an official announcement and moved into a new era.
But the Americans were not the only show in town and there was rival interest in buying the club.
Former chairman Dave King was one who sold shares as part of the takeover and was leading the way in terms of trying to find new investors for the club. He has now told of how there was also interest from a Saudi group and he was in discussions with them before the 49ers deal came along and trumped it.
Read more: Dave King tells Rangers' new owners to be 'wary' of new boss plans
Kevin Thelwell provides update on Rangers manager search, confirms Purdy arrival
He told Sky Sports: "I was in discussions with a Saudi group at a fairly early stage.
"I'd satisfied myself they had the funds but the question was 'would they be the right owners for Rangers Football Club? Would they be acceptable to supporters, in my view, and did they have the knowledge and expertise to take the club forward?'
"Because they had a lot of money, liked the idea of getting involved with football because of some of their peer group were involved in football already, particularly in the Premier League.
"It would be their first venture, so they had the money but what they didn't have was a track record of investing in football clubs.
"So I was still engaging with them at the earlier stages of what the terms of a financial deal might look like and how it might work."
That was when a phone call from Paul Murray convinced King to speak to Andrew Cavenagh and it soon became clear to him that was the correct option to explore.
He added: "I got a phone call from Paul Murray who said 'Dave, I know you're talking to people at the moment but I've got someone who I think you should be talking to'.
"After a chat or two with Paul I was introduced to Andrew Cavenagh and where that worked particularly well was I ended up with the blend of both things that I thought were outstanding.
"If you look at an successful football club there's really three key pillars - one is your supporters and the one thing about Rangers Football Club is you'll always have the support at good times or bad.
"The second one was your commercial football plan. How you're actually going to run the club because bums on seats and selling replica kits is not enough, you need a total football plan.
"And then of course you need a financial plan. You can't do all that without the funding.
"What I liked about the initial chat with Andrew, and then when Paraag and the 49ers became more involved as part of the consortium, I had that blended option where I felt they understood sport, the commercial aspect, all the other things like the gaming side of it.
"So I felt I had this perfect combination where they had the financial muscle that we need and they had the footballing and general sports commercial knowledge.
"So my main focus then was working with the 49ers but keeping the Saudis in the background just in case the 49ers deal for whatever reason didn't come to fruition."
