Former Rangers owner Sir David Murray has claimed he was "duped" by Craig Whyte.

The owner of the Murray Group made the claims in articles printed on Wednesday after he gave off-camera interviews to a select group of newspaper journalists. Sir David declined to speak to the broadcast media.

In articles in The Daily Record, The Scottish Sun, The Herald, The Scotsman, The Scottish Daily Mail and The Scottish Daily Express, Sir David claimed he was "duped" by Mr Whyte who took over the club last May.

Sir David is also quoted in the press reports as denying allegations made by a former Rangers board member that players were paid through second contracts to an employee benefits trust.

In the briefing the former Rangers owner gave with fellow former board member Mike McGill, he claimed Mr Whyte had "duped" him through providing proof of funds in the form of a letter from his lawyers Collyer Bristow.

Sir David is quoted in The Scottish Sun saying: "We'd received proof of funds. We had a legal document confirming he was going to spend money on players, eventually, once he'd paid back the loan. If you can't believe a stock exchange offer document, what can you believe?"

He is also quoted in The Scottish Sun saying that at the time of the takeover he was not aware that Mr Whyte had been banned as a director previously, adding: "If anyone had typed 'Craig Whyte' into a Google search engine, there was only one article on him."

In the article with The Scotsman he also reportedly apologised for selling Rangers to him for a nominal £1 while the club were £18m in debt to Lloyds Banking Group. Sir David is quoted as saying: "I can only apologise so many times. I wish I'd never done the deal with Craig Whyte."

In the articles, Sir David also denied that he had any knowledge of the deal Mr Whyte agreed with Ticketus to sell four years’ worth of season tickets at Ibrox for £24.4m, which effectively funded the takeover as it was used to wipe out the club’s bank debt.