STEVEN NAISMITH has asked newco Rangers to drop their threat of legal action and let him press ahead with his Everton career.

The Scottish Premier League have refused to hand over the player’s registration, instead handing it to world governing body FIFA who will decide if he can officially leave the Ibrox club.

Newco - the reincarnation of the now defunct Glasgow Rangers - are ready to block Naismith’s move to Goodison Park but the 25-year-old hopes a resolution can be found quickly.

Everton are confident there will be no spanner in the works and Naismith is leaving all off-field matters to Everton and his representatives.

“To be honest, I’m, not aware of any of that,” he said.

“I’m just getting straight into pre-season. That’ll be for the lawyers, agents and clubs to talk about. I’m really not interested in that. I just want to focus on the football side of things now. I’ve been talking a lot of legal stuff for months now.

“Rangers are going to look out for their best interests, understandably. I took advice on my situation and took the measures I believe are the proper professional ones. That’s all I can do. I’m just looking forward to playing football and talking about my new boots.”

Last season, administrators asked all players to take a wage cut in order to help the Rangers’ worsening financial situation.

Naismith and several others agreed to the 75% drop yet the outfit still went under.

The Scotland international and many of his team-mates have since rejected a transfer of their contracts to Sevco 5088, which will form the newco Rangers club.

Naismith decided, under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations) legislation, not to move to the new company, and believes he is now a free agent.

His move has sparked criticism in some quarters.

“Everyone is going to have their opinion,” he said.

“Whether people know the full story or they don’t, they are going to have an opinion.

“As a squad we tried to do our best to come out with a CVA and one good thing to come out of us taking a wage cut was every member of staff moved over to the new company.

“And whether they were made redundant or not, they would get a good severance package for the length of time they worked for the old company. That alone is worth what the players did.

“We couldn’t do much more but there is going to be a degree of disappointment from a lot of people with the way the players have left but it has been the hardest decision for a lot of them, whether to leave or transfer over.

“The ones who have transferred over are going to be the ones to hopefully bring the club back up to challenging.”