Scottish football: Walter Smith talks Rangers resignation and how he sees the future of the club
Tuesday 13 January 2015 18:12, UK
Walter Smith has admitted he made a mistake returning to Rangers as a member of Charles Green's Ibrox board.
Smith, who was part of a Rangers' management team that won 10 titles during the 1980s and 1990s - including nine in a row, eventually walked away from the ruins of the Green regime in August 2013 but admits he should have left far sooner.
The 66-year-old returned to the club in November 2012 after being appointed a non-executive director by then chief executive Green and was then handed the chairmanship six months later.
But he soon resigned as he accused the Yorkshireman, and former directors Brian Stockbridge and Bryan Smart, of creating a "highly dysfunctional environment" inside the Ibrox boardroom.
I discovered it wasn't the right time and I had to leave. That was my decision and I found out the boardroom aspect was a circumstance I wasn't particularly comfortable in.
Smith said: "Everybody talks about it being chaotic. Everybody can make up their minds about what happened. It was chaotic enough for me to resign.
"For my own embarrassment I maybe held on a bit too long. I should have resigned long before I did. But that happens. It was an error on my own part to get involved.
"Would I have done anything differently? Yeah, I probably wouldn't have joined the board at all. Why? Just the way everything turned out.
"I felt at the time that if I could help the club in any way with the circumstances it was in, it was the right time to do so.
"As it turns out, after a couple of months I discovered it wasn't the right time and I had to leave. That was my decision and I found out the boardroom aspect was a circumstance I wasn't particularly comfortable in."
Former Scotland manager Craig Brown called for Smith to return to Ibrox for a third stint in charge, with Ally McCoist on gardening leave, but he says that is not going to happen.
He added: "I will go back to Ibrox to games but not in any official capacity. I wouldn't go back onto the board either. I have learned it is an environment I am not particularly comfortable in."
And he hopes the uncertainty over the club's future will be sorted out as soon as possible, feeling the Three Bears consortium of Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor would bring supporters together.
"The ideal outcome would be for Rangers to get back to where they were a number of years ago, challenging for the title, as quickly as possible. That's what every Rangers fan wants. How they get there I don't know," he added.
"I don't know enough about what is going on in the background at the present moment to support one and not the other. I just wish everybody would get together and rid Rangers of the problems we have had.
"Can Douglas Park bring stability back to club and win over the fans' trust? Of course he can. He would do that as somebody known to supporters.
"But whoever comes in has to bring that back to Rangers, whether they are American or Scottish. They have to bring an element of trust back into the club again because supporters are now showing they are unhappy with what is going on."
