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Steven Naismith has defended his decision to walk away from Rangers to join Everton.
The 25-year-old has joined the Blues on a free transfer after refusing to allow his pre-existing contract to be transferred to the new company founded after the Ibrox club went into liquidation.
Rangers were yesterday denied re-entry to next season's Scottish Premier League in light of their recent financial predicament, which has led to further uncertainty over their long-term future.
Naismith's actions, and those of several of his former team mates, have drawn criticism in some quarters north of the border but the 25-year-old insists the decision was a difficult one.
He said: "It was one of the hardest decisions in my footballing career.
"I spent the best years of my career so far at Rangers. It was a big decision that had to be made and I'm glad that it's by with now and I can move on and work on the football side of things.
"Part of my reason for moving on was the uncertainty," he added.
"Rangers don't know what league they're going to be playing in and with [football] being a relatively short career, you can't sit around and wait too long and opportunities would bypass you, so I thought it was the right time and definitely the right move."
Scotland international Naismith also explained that new manager David Moyes' exploits at Everton proved his key motivation in joining club over several other interested Premier League clubs.
"My decision to move to Everton was, first of all, under the manager's leadership over the last ten years. It's been one of the most successful clubs in terms of growing and the facilities are definitely world class.
"I've heard a lot from various people that have been in contact with the club over the past few years and [they have] a great bunch of guys in the squad.
"When I came in this morning, every one of them made me feel very welcome.
"It's a quality squad but I'm going to definitely get opportunities and it's got to be my goal to help them basically."
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