The former Gers star admits he would’ve handled things differently as he recalled the manner of his controversial exit
20:24, 20 Apr 2026Updated 20:47, 20 Apr 2026
Steven Whittaker is mobbed by his Rangers teammates(Image: SNS Group 0141 221 3602)
Steven Whittaker thought he was going to end his career at Rangers after penning a bumper deal.
But less than 12 months later, the three-in-a-row title-winner ripped up his contract and departed as an Ibrox hate figure. Almost 14 years on, Gers fans still hold a grudge over the way he and Steven Naismith walked out on the club in 2012.
Whittaker and the rest of Ally McCoist’s squad took hefty pay cuts during the Light Blues’ financial meltdown.
However, after refusing to transfer their contracts to Charles Green’s new company, Whittaker and Naismith further damaged their reputations in the eyes of supporters with an infamous press conference announcing their exits.
It was a bitter end to what had been a hugely successful five years in Govan. Looking back, Whittaker wishes things were handled differently during his most turbulent period in football.
He told the William Hill Warm-Up podcast: “A horrible time. Probably the worst in my career.
“The season before, me, Greegsy (Allan McGregor), and Steven Davis had signed new five-year deals. So I went into that, it would have taken me to 33-years-old, in my head I was retiring at Rangers.
“Then, within a season, that flips and you’re thinking, ‘Well, what’s happening here?’
“You constantly adapt and I think it was hard for Coisty at the time trying to manage through that. It was hard to play through that.
“There are situations that occur when you think, I should have done this and that better.
“But it’s all hindsight. You look back and think you definitely could have handled certain situations better, which would have put you in a better light or allowed other people to understand.
“You won’t understand unless you were in that changing room day-to-day seeing how it was handled.”