Philippe Clement says John Bennett reluctantly stepped down as Rangers chairman

Posted Sunday, September 15, 2024 by PA

Philippe Clement revealed that John Bennett reluctantly and with some emotion stepped down as Rangers chairman on Saturday due to health reasons.

The news of Bennett’s departure after 18 months in the post came at a time when the Ibrox club are still searching for a CEO, a director of football and an academy director, while former director John Gilligan has stepped in as temporary chairman.

Speaking after an early Tom Lawrence goal gave the Light Blues a 1-0 win over Dundee United at Tannadice to leapfrog the Terrors into third place in the William Hill Premiership, the Gers boss was asked about Bennett and said: “Yeah, that’s not something that you want, of course.

“I heard from John as probably one of the first to hear about that during the week.

“He explained everything to me. It’s not his decision. It’s a doctor’s decision.

“So it’s with a lot of pain in the heart that he had to make the decision.

“And I wish him all the best to recover as fast as possible. But he will not be away. He will be there at a distance, but he needs to keep a little bit of distance now to recover first.”

In light of all the impending changes at Rangers, Clement may now be considered a figurehead at the club despite only arriving last October.

The Belgian boss said: “I think until now I’ve been the only one talking outside (the club). So that doesn’t change too much. Maybe it will change next week. We will see.

“I’m not the guy who brings in the money into the club.

“My job is to get the best out of the players who are in the building, to look for new ones, together with recruitment team and to make the right decisions with the budget we have.

“That’s my job and I will continue in that way. But I had also a lot of talks before with James (Bisgrove, departed chief executive) and with John about strategic things for the future of the club and to make things better in the club, in everything, but also in Scottish football.

“So I think it will continue with the new people who step in.”

On the much-needed victory which followed the damaging 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park before the international break, Clement said: “We knew that United is in a really good dynamic after winning promotion, then after having a really good start in the Premiership and they deserve the points that they have until now. So we knew it would be a hard game.

“We started very well on the ball, with the things that we had done in training and scored a really good first goal. In the second half, it was more a fight because Dundee United pressed higher and were more aggressive.

“And then in those moments, we need to be better to score the second goal or the third goal to kill off the game.”

United boss Jim Goodwin had no real complaints about his newly-promoted side’s first league defeat of the season.

He said: “Obviously we didn’t start the game well. The shape of the team wasn’t working early on. I think that’s where the goal ultimately comes from.

“We were a little bit bare in the middle of the pitch. The frustrating thing is that it actually comes from our throw-in initially.

“We need to make a tackle at some point, whether it’s a cynical foul or something like that to prevent Lawrence from entering into the penalty box. That’s the disappointment.

“Whenever you play against Celtic or Rangers, you always speak about the first 15 minutes and staying in the game.

“We gave ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb from that moment onwards.”