Craig Whyte - STV News interview transcript

Rangers FC© SNS Group

What is your current position regarding selling up?

Nobody has spoken to me about this since Friday. I’m willing to talk to anybody who is interested.

Any preference between Blue Knights or Bill Miller?

None at all, no.

Do you have a figure in mind?

I’m not going to get into that just now. I have said I will do what’s best for the club.

Which deal would be best for the club?

Without knowing the detail I can’t really comment on that. I haven’t spoke to any of them for the last few days.

Are you worried about your personal safety?

What everybody is missing here is that when I bought the club for £1, it was a mess long before I bought it. I certainly haven’t made things any worse. It’s a difficult time at the moment but the problems existed long before I took over. To blame me for everything is absurd.

What about the non-payment of VAT and PAYE?

We had £4m frozen at the bank. We took advice at the time to wait until the January transfer window (before we paid PAYE, VAT etc) but perhaps we should have put it into administration in October before the debt built up but it’s not a decision to take lightly.  We were in regular dialogue with HMRC and at one stage they asked us not to go into administration.

Club now facing liquidation?

I would really hope not, but the SFA haven’t been helpful. The administration process has taken longer than it should have done.

Do you accept that you are to blame for all of this?

No I don’t think I made anything worse than it already was. I took decisive action to put the club into administration which should have been the solution to all the problems.

Was it financial assistance when you used Ticketus money at time of takeover?

There was all sorts of advice given back then, from three sets of lawyers, financial advisors, the advice was that it wasn’t financial assistance. I’m not a legal expert but I took the advice of legal advisors.

Should you have been more open about Ticketus?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’m not used to dealing with the glare of publicity. With hindsight everything should have been put out into the open from day one. But we are where we are.

Do you want to get all this sorted out as quickly as possible to get on with the rest of your life?

I’m dealing with the rest of my life. If anybody wants to talk to me they know where I am.

IN DETAIL