Leggat - DAVID MURRAY MUST SPEAK OUT

[ian1964 10,870]

THERE is a significance in the almost panicky intervention by the Murray Group in the problems which surround the way David Murray sold Rangers to Craig Whyte.

 

 

And there even greater significance in that it was made by an anonymous spokesman and not from the usually publicity hungry former Rangers owner and chairman, David Murray.

 

 

The Murray Group jumped in after the man Murray nominated to succeed him as Ibrox chairman, old board leader, Alastair Johnston, demanded that the governmentâ??s Insolvency Service Intelligence and Enforcement Directorate launch an official probe into Whyteâ??s buy-out of Murray and takeover of Rangers.

 

 

The Johnston demand came after allegations that Whyte used the money raised by mortgaging three yearsâ?? worth of Ibrox season tickets to fund the repayment of the £18M debt to Lloyds Banks, believed to have been a condition of Lloyds sanctioning any change of ownership.

 

 

This is something Whyte strenuously denies.

 

 

It is something Rangers supporters are becoming increasingly uneasy about, with that unease becoming even more acute when a Sheriff at Glasgow Sheriff Court branded Whyte a wholly unreliable court witness when a judgment in another and totally unrelated case, went against the increasingly beleaguered Ibrox owner.

 

 

The crux of the matter is where the funds which were in a client account set up by Whyteâ??s London lawyers to prove he was a man of substance, capable of clearing the Rangers debt to Lloyds and funding the running of Rangers, came from.

 

 

Whyte insists they were transferred from another of his companies. Johnston clearly suspects not. But why this should be a matter of discussion is difficult to understand.

 

 

After all, the negotiations between Murray and Whyte lasted around six months, plenty of time for David Murray to have conducted exhaustive due diligence of Whyte and his myriad companies.

 

 

And it was only after Murrayâ??s due diligence was satisfied that he and Lloyds and Whyte all came together to negotiate the transfer of ownership of Rangers from Murray to Whyte for a quid, conditional on Whyte paying off that £18M debt to Lloyds.

 

 

Even at the eleventh hour the deal was almost blocked when then chairman Alastair Johnston warned against Whyte being the right man to own Rangers, while old board member Paul Murray(no relation) tried to organise a last ditch buy out.

 

 

Through all of this, David Murray backed Whyte. Now, according to the Murray Groupâ??s spokesman, quoted in the Herald, David Murray is to seek clarification of the financial and security arrangements which the purchaser appears to have put in place.

 

 

If, after around six months of Murrayâ??s due diligence into the finances of the man he sold Rangers to, Murray now feels the need to seek further clarification, he should break cover and be brave enough to explain himself in person and not hide behind a Murray Group spokesman.

 

 

Murray has many questions to answer and he may well find that this time his usual bluster wonâ??t work.

 

 

Just as Lloyds Bank may also soon have some searching questions to answer to. And this time they wonâ??t be able to hide behind the cowardly cloak of customer confidentiality.

 

 

The full significance of the Murray Groupâ??s seemingly panicky intervention into Alastair Johnstonâ??s call for a government probe into the funding when Whyte bought Rangers from Murray, remains to be revealed.