The St Mirren chief executive has threatened legal action against those conspiracy theorists who claim he had a hidden agenda when he voted at Hampden yesterday. St Mirren and Ross County voted against SPL plans for a new 12-12-18 set-up.
Online rumours have circulated since the vote suggesting Gilmour had acted on behalf of the Ibrox club after welcoming their chief executive Charles Green to St Mirren Park for the Buddies' game with Celtic last month.
Meanwhile, Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne has suggested Gilmour had an "agenda" behind his decision to vote against the proposals, while Hearts chief executive David Southern suggested St Mirren concerns on voting structures were a "smokescreen to protect other people's interests".
However, Gilmour told Press Association Sport: "These rumours sound like a conspiracy theory. Any club official who would suggest such a thing, we would look at it legally because it is absolutely slanderous. The St Mirren board are only interested in what is in the best interests of St Mirren Football Club and that will always be the case."
Had the plans for the new league structure gone through, Rangers would have remained in the bottom league, despite winning the Third Division with five games to spare. But with talks on reconstruction having now seemingly been de-railed, Rangers will instead be promoted to the Second Division.
Gilmour - who, along with fellow boardroom members, persuaded Saints shareholders to axe club director Ken McGeoch following revelations about alleged links to former Rangers owner Craig Whyte - insisted he was looking out for all of Scotland's senior clubs when he voted against the plans over concerns about fan backing for the new set-up and the 11-1 voting structure.
Asked about the Rangers rumours, he said: "It's ridiculous. This is a club that voted Rangers into Division Three, voted a director off our board because of alleged links to Rangers. We are also a supporter of a 42-team solution for Scottish football, not an SPL2, and that would therefore have no short-cut for Rangers back to the top-flight, so where somebody would get the idea that we were doing this to help Rangers is beyond me.
"I would add that Charles Green did attend a game at St Mirren Park but like any director, chairman or manager from any football club, when they make a request for tickets by email, they are shown the same hospitality by the club as any other representative. During Mr Green's visit, there was no discussion about league reconstruction. In fact, the only thing we did speak about was agents, players wages, etc."
[Source: ScottishFitba.net]