Former Rangers manager Mark Warburton claims he was “sacked” at Ibrox and didn’t resign from the club to move to Nottingham Forest.
In an interview with Scot Score, the former Rangers boss, 61, has been talking about his controversial exit from the Gers back in February 2017.
Despite guiding Rangers to promotion from the Scottish Championship, Mark Warburton toiled in his second season in charge as a rampant Celtic romped to a treble.
Whilst Rangers claimed they had accepted the management team’s resignation, Mark Warburton insists he would never have “walked away” from Rangers and claims he found out the news via Sky Sports.
“I’ll never say anything derogatory about the club, you know that,” said Warburton. “I was lying on my sofa watching a game. It was five to nine and I’ll never forget this, it was burned on my brain: my phone started jumping a little bit.
“I got an email from Stewart (Robertson) saying: ‘Please check your email. It’s a minute to nine on a Friday night, the night before a game. So I’m going to watch a bit of the news, do a bit of paperwork and go to bed.
“I look over and purely by chance I’m on Sky Sports and on the yellow ticker tape I see ‘Mark Warburton resigns from Rangers.’ You know the double take?
“My phone’s now jumping and I phone Davie Weird and say: ‘I think I’ve just been sacked’ and Davie Weir says: ‘So have I.’
“I said: ‘what do you mean?’ Then look up and it says David Weir has resigned from Rangers.
“So I try to phone the powers that be and no-one picks your calls up. My agent called up to ask what was going on and I had no idea. ‘Apparently I’ve resigned’ and he has no idea what I’m talking about.
“So it a nutshell, absolutely not. I was sacked from Rangers. We would never, ever walk away from a club like Rangers. Ever.”
Mark Warburton on Nottingham Forest
Despite the claims, Mark Warburton would move to Nottingham Forest after leaving Rangers and it’s always kept an air of Ibrox suspicion over the manager.
Asked about the move to the City Ground, the former Gers boss has claimed the job came as a result of an out-of-the-blue phone call and was not planned despite suggestions otherwise.
Mark Warburton also claims that he did his duty at Nottingham Forest and suggested there was nothing fishy about his post-Rangers switch to the club.
“This is again, ‘Warburton’s resigned to go to Nottingham Forest’,” Warburton started.
“The owners, Mr Fawaz (Al-Hasawi) who was selling the club to the current owner Mr (Evangelos) Marinakis, I never met Mr Fawraz.
“I get a phone call ten days after I left Rangers. I’m sitting at home doing some media stuff and I get phone call from the agent saying Nottingham Forest would like to speak to you.
“And that was it. It’s a big club, twice European Cup winners.
“I met Mr Marinakis for the first time, 10-15 minute meeting, he said ‘I’d like to offer you the job, the only goal is survival’, they were bottom of the Championship.
“The only goal is survival, which we did on the last day. We had to better Blackburn’s result and we did that at home and kept the club up.”
Mark Warburton had managed Brentford prior to moving to Rangers and has gone on to take charge at Nottingham Forest and QPR since.
The former Rangers manager is now out of work after leaving a coaching role with David Moyes’ West Ham team at the end of the season.
