Warburton’s resignation: What has happened last week?

Almost a week on and the story of what led to Mark Warburton’s resignation are still a bit sketchy. The former manager insists he didn’t resign while the club claim he offered his resignation through his agent last Monday. So just what has happened?

Dave King’s statements claim the club was approached by a third party in with a view to allowing the trio of Warburton, Davie Weir and Frank McParland leave the club, without compensation. When this interest never materialised an agent representing all three approached the club and, according to King, offered that the trio would resign should Rangers not pursue compensation should they then find a new club. Warburton’s statement doesn’t even acknowledge these claims.

Rangers’ statement then goes on to say that as the club were preparing ‘admin and press releases’ they were again approached on behalf of Warburton, Weir and McParland and asked to hold off on the resignation until they had ‘secured a new club’. This could have been next week or two weeks before the end of the season but Rangers were to keep them in a job until they found something else and then let them go without a penny in compensation. The Rangers board discussed this and refused; holding them to the original agreement.

Again, there’s no reference to these claims in Warburton’s statement, the former Brentford boss only says "at no stage did we resign" and adds little else. He does nothing to address if he, via his agent, offered to resign if the club waived any future compensation claim.

There’s also some concern over the timeline presented by Dave King but, with a little digging, we think it’s gone something like this:

Sometime before Monday 6th: A third party approaches Dave King informally about whether Rangers would be willing to let Warburton, Weir and McParland leave the club early and without compensation. The interest is never followed up formally by a club.

Rangers are then approached by Warburton’s agent and a meeting is organised,

Monday 6th: A meeting between Stewart Robertson and an agent (Dave Lockwood acting for Warburton, Weir and McParland takes place in Glasgow. The meeting concludes with the agent proposing that the trio will resign on condition Rangers waive any future compensation claim. Robertson takes the offer to the Rangers board.

Monday 6th /Tuesday 7th: A board meeting takes place and it’s decided to accept the offer made by the agent. Rangers begin process of drawing up paperwork for waiving compensation and preparing media for when their departure is announced. As Warburton still has no formal offer, it’s agreed he will take charge of the weekend’s Scottish Cup tie against Morton before an announcement will be made.

Tuesday 7th: Graeme Murty takes charge of the U20s as the beat Hibs 2-1 at Hibernian Training Centre.

Thursday 9th: Reports emerge suggesting Frank McParland could be set to leave the club imminently over ‘budget issues’ with no destination named. Later that day we revealed Mark Warburton’s odds are slashed from 25/1 to 7/4 to take over at Nottingham Forest before Forest announce Gary Brazil will remain as interim boss until the end of the season.

Friday 10th: Warburton takes training and holds a press conference where he dismisses the previous day’s reports as ‘nonsense’ and ‘mischievous’.

Following the appointment of Brazil everything goes off-the-rails. With unemployment looming and no job offer imminent Warburton’s agent tries to alter the terms of the offer that was made to the club, keeping them at Ibrox until they find another suitor, and this is discussed before being rejected with the club deciding to reject the modified offer and deciding to announce the trio had left the club immediately.

Rangers release a statement confirming the trio have left.