Clean Hands

Today's the day if you want to submit a bid to buy Rangers Football Club - apparently.

I won't be making an offer, but I was surprised to read that Sir David Murray is back on the scene - and may attempt to buy back the club he sold to the current owner - Craig Whyte - only last May.

Since then Rangers have become embroiled in an unbelievable financial mess - but one of the reasons for that mess - arguably - is the way in which the club was run by Sir David Murray for many years.

The Ibrox club is facing a tax bill from HMRC for somewhere around £49 million - which stems from an extravagant and complicated payment scheme for Rangers players - who were paid their huge salaries via Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs).

The EBTs were designed in a way to avoid Rangers players paying tax or so that they would pay as little tax as possible - but this scheme broke the rules according to the HMRC - which is where the £49 million comes from as a back tax bill built up over a long period of time.

Now as well as being against HMRC rules - I would say that this kind of scheme is an affront to common sense.

Why should footballers - on film star salaries - be helped to avoid paying their fair share of taxes? 

I imagine that someof them must have been paying a much smaller percentage of their salaries in tax - than the ordinary Glasgow men and women doing everyday, but important jobs for Rangers Football Club.

So what I don't understand is how Sir David Murray could possibly make a comeback - because he is arguably one of the people responsible for bringing the Ibrox club to its knees.

Now it may be convenient for Sir David to blame everything on the new owner - Craig Whyte - who certainly deserves to be castigated for his woeful stewardship of the Ibrox club.

But Rangers were clearly in a terrible mess long before Craig Whyte arrived on the scene - and the only way forward that I can see now is for the club to be taken over by people who have completely 'clean hands'.

In other words people who are not associated with all the dodgy business practices and costly mistakes of the past - which have brought Rangers to where they are now.