“Following discussions with the medical staff, we agreed that an injection was the only option, which was initially scheduled for Thursday.<\/p>\n
“After Sunday’s game, and with emotions running high, I made the decision to bring the injection forward to Tuesday. That decision would have ruled me out of both Wednesday and Saturday’s matches.<\/p>\n
“After speaking throughout Monday with my family and the medical department, I came to the decision to delay the injection so I could play one final game at Ibrox on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
“I informed the manager and explained how important it was to me and my family that I had the opportunity to say goodbye properly to the Ibrox faithful.”<\/p>\n
Tavernier went on to explain that, following correspondence with Rohl, he was informed he would be a substitute. Reports surfaced just before the game that he had left Ibrox and refused to be involved in the matchday squad.<\/p>\n
“In that moment, my emotions understandably took over,” he added.<\/p>\n
“Many people may feel I could have handled the situation better, and I accept that, but after dedicating over a decade of my life to this club, with my family beside me throughout it all, I felt deeply hurt and let down.<\/p>\n
“What disappointed me most was the version of events that was later presented publicly, as it did not reflect the conversations that had taken place privately.<\/p>\n
“I firmly believe the situation could and should have been handled much better from all sides. A lack of communication allowed matters to escalate unnecessarily in the build up to such an emotional occasion for myself and my family.”<\/p>\n
Tavernier announced late last month that he would be leaving this summer at the end of his contract. <\/p>\n
He has made 565 Rangers appearances, scoring 144 goals for the club, and is British football’s highest scoring defender with 152.<\/p>\n
And he said near the end of his statement: “I want to make clear that no individual is ever bigger than this great football club.<\/p>\n
“Rangers must always come first. I hope the fans continue to stand united behind the team and the club moving forward. Thank you for everything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Following discussions with the medical staff, we agreed that an injection was the only option, which was initially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-584240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}