“No approach” – Rangers will not appoint Hearts’ McKinlay | OneFootball

As many Rangers fans are now becoming aware, the club will not only not be appointing Hearts’ CEO Andrew McKinlay in that position at Ibrox, but the board never actually made any approach for his services either, despite claims in the Scottish media to the contrary.

Rangers’ search for a CEO has been, in a word, abysmal, with the position being vacant since mid-June following the exit of James Bisgrove to Saudi Arabia, and the club has lacked any significant leadership for the past four months.

Only former Chairman John Bennett was prepared to step up as much as he did, and take it all on the chin, before ill-health and stress apparently stopped him, but Rangers had come close at that point, with overtures towards Jim Gillespie of St Mirren, before that all fell through.

But it has been confirmed there was and likely won’t be any approach towards McKinlay who will remain at Hearts after speaking in the press recently about plans and objectives, particularly finding a new manager.

He has his own search to carry out.

But Rangers’ own one for a CEO goes on, it being widely-reported a recruitment agency has been drafted in to help find what is needed – this isn’t overly reassuring, that the board doesn’t feel equipped as it is to find a CEO, and that even acting chairman John Gilligan falls short.

That is, Gilligan has confirmed a CEO is number one priority, but he doesn’t have experience of hiring such a thing, certainly not in football, so even though it’s his priority, he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

Hence an agency is in place to help with it all, and that kind of confirms there’s nothing in Scottish football that Rangers have either found or have targeted – or even know about.

Fundamentally, Rangers’ search for a boss really isn’t going well, and it’s official now that McKinlay isn’t even on the radar.

Good lord.