REBEL shareholder Paul Murray insists financial director Brian Stockbridge’s position at Rangers is “completely untenable”.
After failing to win a place on the Gers’ board at yesterday’s annual meeting, Murray claimed Stockbridge has behaved “unacceptably” since joining the Ibrox board last June.
He launched a stinging attack against the 39-year-old chartered accountant as he rounded on financial results that saw the club lose £14.4 million in the 13 months up to June.
He also rebuked Stockbridge for leaking video footage of former chairman Malcolm Murray one of Paul Murray’s fellow “requisitioners” appearing to be drunk on to the internet.
Murray also repeated an opinion voiced by lawyer Richard Keen QC three months ago during a hearing at the Court of Session that Stockbridge and former board colleagues may have broken the law by trying to block the requisitioners from putting their nominations to shareholders at an annual meeting.
Murray told BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound programme: “Putting aside Rangers and the history of this whole thing, if this was any other organisation, the financial mismanagement in the last 12 to 15 months, which has been there for all to see, the personal conduct to take a video of Malcolm Murray and upload it onto YouTube is obviously unacceptable.
“Also when we went to the Court of Session, every member of that board committed an offence under the Company’s Act.
“A pretty serious offence.
“So on all those bases, Brian Stockbridge’s position is completely untenable.
“Now if the board of Rangers, including the new directors, including (chief executive) Graham Wallace, think that is acceptable then I think that reflects very badly on them.”
Murray and his three associates Malcolm Murray, Alex Wilson and Scott Murdoch all failed to get the necessary backing from the powerful institutional investors as they were routed by the current board.
Murray said he now fears for the Scottish League One outfit’s future ambitions on the pitch.
He said: “Probably the most surprising revelation was that Graham Wallace said that the cost base would have to come down going forward and indeed they would be spending less money in the SPFL than they were in the third tier of Scottish football.
“So you start to wonder about how the team might look in a couple of years’ time.”