I was duped into selling to Whyte, insists Former Rangers owner Sir David Murray

By David Gold

March 15 – Former Glasgow Rangers owner Sir David Murray (pictured) has admitted he was “duped” into selling the club to Craig Whyte.

Since Whyte took over the majority shareholding of the Scottish club in May last year for £1 (€1.2/$1.6), Rangers have gone into administration and been forced to make drastic spending cuts.

They are currently hoping for a new buyer to rescue the team, with the prospect of liquidation not out of the question at present.

“I was primarily duped,” Murray said.

“My advisers were duped, the bank was duped, the shareholders were duped.

“We’ve all been duped.”

Having said he would only sell up to someone with Rangers’ best interests at heart, he defended his decision to sell to Whyte “because he met the criteria that were in his offer document”.

“He’s quite affable and plausible,” Murray added.

“I always remember someone said, ‘Does it pass the sniff test?’

“He was Scottish, he wasn’t a foreigner, he was supposedly a Rangers supporter, he had the money.

“There is a Stock Exchange offer document there.

“If you can’t believe that, what can you do?

“Craig Whyte made a statement that the club was never in better financial state when he took it over.

“This is a guy saying he’s going to spend money on players, on health and safety, do the ground up.

“That is a legal offer document.

“You would expect that to be honoured.

“The letter on 3 January is quite dynamite, because what they’ve done is confirm that they would deliver the deal they signed up to.”

Murray also defended himself from suggestions that there should be an inquiry into alleged use of “double contracts” while he was the Rangers owner, through the Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) system.

The EBTs were the subject of a tax tribunal in January with Rangers being pursued for £9 million (€11 million/$14 million) in PAYE and VAT which HMRC claim they are owed.

Murray, who says he has not spoken to Scottish Football Association (SFA) chief Stewart Regan over the issue, said: “I’ve asked the auditors to go through it.

“I’ve looked through every year to check my facts.

“There was no double contract.

“There was categorically no dual contracts.

“What I would say is this.

“We went through 10 AGMs.

“We signed off accounts by Grant Thornton, the remuneration trust was always mentioned in the account, it was never hidden.

“And that’s a fact.”

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