Money talks. It is the voice of Patrick Stewart that will be heard loudest at Ibrox on a day-to-day basis now. The people, the processes and the perception are changing.

The Rangers Review exclusively revealed on Saturday evening that Stewart would be the man appointed as chief executive officer. The search had become a saga, but the arrival of Stewart must mark a line in the sand. The start of his tenure is, in some respects, the end of an age.

Next March will mark a decade since regime change at Rangers as Dave King, John Gilligan and Paul Murray won the boardroom battle and saved the club. For the first years, it was King who served as chairman and who was the dominant figure. When Douglas Park and then John Bennett held the position, Rangers did not deviate from that way of operating. The board had a say and the ultimate sign off as every opinion had a place, but the man at the head of the table naturally carried more clout given his influence, most pertinently in a financial sense.

Read more:

That will not be the case going forward. The arrival of Stewart as CEO will be followed by the appointment of a chairman to take over from Gilligan. As the Rangers Review reported this weekend, that position is likely to be held by Malcolm Offord. Unlike the three chairmen before him, Offord – a Greenock businessman and Conservative peer - will not be the man with the chequebook that can call the shots.

The power will lie with Stewart. He is the figurehead and the decision maker, the line manager and the standard setter. Stewart will have the say and the sway at Ibrox.

“On behalf of the board, I’m delighted to welcome Patrick to the club as CEO,” Gilligan, the interim chairman, said in a statement on Monday morning as Rangers confirmed that Stewart will take up his post on December 16. “Patrick comes with an excellent reputation and background, bringing extensive experience of operating at senior levels during his 20-plus years in football. The board continues in discussions with several excellent candidates for the role of Chairperson and expect to make an announcement of an appointment in the coming weeks.”

Stewart will be answerable to and held accountable by the same board of directors that have overseen his appointment. It is those individuals who have been in the crosshairs of the support in recent weeks and chants that the club is ‘in the wrong hands’ were heard during the draw with Dundee United on Saturday as Philippe Clement’s position as manager became even more difficult to defend for those who still back the beleaguered Belgian.

Gilligan has been assisted by George Letham in recent weeks after being asked to return to lead the board that he stepped down from in May 2017. The departure of Bennett for health reasons came in the aftermath of an unsuccessful attempt to bring Jim Gillespie from St Mirren to fill the void that had been left by James Bisgrove’s exit to Saudi Arabia in the summer. The five remaining members of the RIFC plc board – Graeme Park, Alistair Johnston, Julian Wolhardt, John Halstead and George Taylor – were involved in the process at one stage or another.

(Image: Alan Harvey - SNS Group) Stewart emerged as the prime candidate after the names provided by a specialist recruitment agency were put to Rangers. The former interim CEO of Manchester United has earned the backing of the board. Now he must, as sources insist he will, be given the autonomy to run Rangers his way according to clearly defined approval lines.

Those directors and investors have, after all, proven that their decision-making has been deeply flawed in recent seasons. The alteration in working is not a criticism of those who have previously served as chairman, but perhaps a realisation that change is needed given the football and financial failures of late. It is a move that will encourage a support who have many reasons to criticise the incumbents at present. Funding Rangers and operating Rangers are very different things, and Stewart arrives with a resume that earns him the right to make big calls. Certain figures taking a back seat would be no bad thing.

The first decision will be whether to back or sack Clement. The board are not adopting a head in the sand approach to the situation around the manager. Social media worked itself into a frenzy on Sunday evening amid suggestions that Clement had departed. As the Rangers Review reported, the posts and messages and rumours were inaccurate, and Clement will lead the team into their Europa League fixture with Nice on Thursday.

Clement’s position will naturally come under scrutiny and be up for debate as Stewart and Offord get their feet under the table at Ibrox. Stewart will not officially begin work until the day after the League Cup final and will not be at the top table at the Annual General Meeting the week before that Hampden showdown with Celtic. There is an expectation that he will hit the ground running and he will return north of the border to base himself in the central belt. Stewart does not have a notice period to serve and the focus will be on what Rangers do in a sporting sense – including against Tottenham Hotspur and Celtic – between now and his start date.

The recruitment process feels drawn out and supporters have been eager for any hint of light at the tunnel for some time. It is, though, just nine weeks from the day that Gilligan held his first press conference and outlined the state of play at Ibrox on a range of issues. Rangers have moved quickly and quietly and a series of conversations with Stewart in recent weeks resulted in him seeing off competition from the handful who made it to the final stage.

Stewart may not have experience of working in Scottish football but his near two decades at Old Trafford will prepare him for anything that life at Ibrox can throw up. Stewart was raised in Aberdeen and graduated from Glasgow University, working as a lawyer in Scotland before joining TEAM marketing, the firm that is responsible for UEFA competitions.

One source told the Rangers Review in September that ‘you don’t need to be Billy Connolly, but you need to have a strong personality and be a great communicator.’ Those are two of the boxes that Stewart ticks and that charisma came across in the interviews as he prepares to lead a club that need a new sense of direction and purpose. Stewart's  longevity at United speaks to his standards and his skillset.

A brief as general counsel and company secretary was the first he held from 2006. In 2019, he joined the Manchester United board and his remit expanded to include player contracts. Relationships were formed with the FA, the Premier League and UEFA and Stewart has held positions with the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the European Club Association.

Read more:

The end of his time with United coincided with the transfer of power from the Glazers to Sir Jim Ratcliffe. That was a natural break for Stewart. He has not had to wait long for his next opportunity to present itself and he holds a CV that marks him out as an operator of the standard and standing that Rangers require.

The two facets of Rangers – as a football team and as a business – are always interlinked. They can, at times, be viewed separately and the appointment of Stewart and the arrival of a chairman are important milestones in what has been a time of change. Creag Robertson has left his position, while Nils Koppen has taken up a new one as technical director. Rangers have also recently brought on board Peter Dallas, the former managing director of Hampden Park, as head of operations to oversee Ibrox and Auchenhowie.

Events on the field will always dictate the mood of the support and many will feel that Rangers can do no right at present. The problems will soon be Stewart’s to address.

The vision must be his to implement. Money will always talk. The chief executive will walk the walk.