Club 1872, the Rangers supporters group, has completed its first purchase of shares from former Ibrox chairman Dave King.

The organisation has announced a transaction totalling 1.25million shares in a deal worth £250,000.

The deal takes the fans group’s stake in the club above five per cent and further on the road to its aim of controlling a quarter of the shares.

King agreed a £13.3million deal with Club 1872 last month which gives it the right to purchase all of his shares for a fixed price of 20p each in a three-year period.

Vice-chairman John Bennett subsequently urged the fan organisation to put its money directly into Rangers and Club 1872 reiterated its intention to do that as well.

A statement read: “The deal with Dave King represents a hugely important strategic opportunity for Club 1872 over the next three to four years – it is likely to be the only major source of shares available to the organisation after the early part of this calendar year as RIFC moves to the sustainability phase announced by John Bennett at the RIFC AGM.

“It was therefore essential that Club 1872 kick this deal off as agreed last year and make a strong start to our three-year campaign to attract legacy members.

“We are delighted to say that, in the couple of weeks our campaign was active prior to the Christmas break, we were able to sign up nearly 1500 new legacy members.

“We have spoken to Dave King over the festive break and are pleased to confirm that we have agreed with him that all share funding raised in the first six months of 2021, both from legacy and standard donations, can be made available to RIFC if they go ahead with a share issue on the terms that John Bennett announced at the AGM.

“We have also retained funds from our member contributions from 2020 to put towards any such share issue.”