Administrators under fire as £17.5m of insolvent Rangers' star players walked for less than £1m

It has further emerged that  Craig Whyte would not sell their most valuable player for £6m, £500,000 less than the whole club's assets in administration was sold to the Charles Green-fronted Sevco consortium, The Herald reports. 

Rangers adminstrators were accused of failing to proactively seek buyers for their most valuable players to cut costs and potentially provide more money for the thousands owed millions from the club collapse.

New analysis reveals that four of Rangers most valuable players at the time which a club assessment involving a group of agents and the chief scout estimated were collectively worth £17.5m on the market ended up leaving for less than £1m after the Sevco sale - with three going for nothing.

The four were goalkeeper, Allan McGregor, defender Steven Whittaker,  forward Steven Naismith and captain Steven Davis.

Evidence has revealed that first choice goalkeeper Allan McGregor was estimated by agents at the time of the insolvency to be worth on average £6m - but ended up going to Turkish giants Beskitas in July, after the club's assets were bought by Sevco for free.

The revelation over Mr McGregor's position came in an email between Mr McGregor's agent and the club's head of football administration Andrew Dickson on June 6, eight days before Charles Green's asset buy for £5.5m as the business fell into liquidation.

It said that Mr Whyte had told the agent that an offer of £5-6m for Mr McGregor would be turned down.

The agent then appeared to refer to the player as being worth £7m to £10m.

The details emerged as BDO, the liquidators of the Rangers oldco sue the joint administrators of the club Mr Clark and Mr Whitehouse of Duff and Phelps for £56.8m saying a flawed cost-cutting strategy meant creditors lost millions from the handling of the club’s financial implosion.

One of their concerns is that not enough was done to proactively sell players.

Mr Whitehouse and Clark are defending the action in the Court of Session claiming the liquidators expected a “bonkers” strategy of a ‘fire sale’ of Rangers which would have “effectively shut the club down for good”.

The case comes nine years after the Rangers business under My Whyte fell into administration and then liquidation leaving thousands of unsecured creditors out of pocket, including more than 6000 loyal fans who bought £7.7m worth of debenture seats at Ibrox.

Details about why Mr McGregor was not sold emerged as questions have arisen about why the administrators did not have a proactive strategy to sell players after the club fell into insolvency in February, 2012, after Mr Whyte was at the helm for just nine months.

One agent, William Pethybridge pointed to an email from August, 2011, six months before the club went into administration from Alistair Russell of Rangers, then chief operations officer, which stated that the would not let the goalkeeper go for £5m "highlighting the value in which the club held him".

He said that applying a discount of 40% to reflect that the club was in adminisration and that the main European transfer windows were close, he valued the transfer at £4.2m.

Mr McGregor moved to Turkish football in July, 2012 for nothing after he objected moving to the newco and became a free agent - meaning the club was not legally in the position to ask for any transfer compensation for him.

Mr Pethybridge said said the better players in the squad, like Mr McGregor and Steven Naismith ended up playing in more competitive football leagues and that there was a clear market for them.

Administrators rejected an offer for Mr Naismith from West Brom as they were trying to cut costs as the club financially imploded.

The transfer to English Premier League team West Bromwich Albion would have raised £2m for creditors owed millions through the insolvency of Rangers and saved on his £20,000 a week wages. Agents estimated his market value at the time was £4.5m.

Everton ended up signing Mr Naismith in July, 2012, as he was allowed to leave on a free transfer after he rejected a contract transfer from oldco Rangers to the Sevco-owned newco.

Mr Naismith, who joined Rangers in the summer of 2007 for £1.9m and went on to win three consecutive league titles said that when the club had gone into insolvency in February, 2012, a move away from Rangers was an attraction.

Another of Rangers most valuable players, defender Steven Whittaker, who was valued by agents at around £2m signed for English Premier League club Norwich City, 16 days after the Sevco purchase for nothing, signing a four-year deal.

Also on Rangers' 'most valuable' list was their captain Steven Davis, who was estimated to be worth £5m on the market, also opted to become a free agent and 22 days after the Sevco takeover signed a three-year deal with Southampton in the English Premier League.  

A £800,000 fee was said to have been agreed through a special financial arrangement as Charles Green challenged the legal right of several Rangers players not to transfer their contracts to his newco club.  

Mr Pethybridge said that you did not have to sell them all - just two or three players bought would "save the club".

"But nobody put that into action," he said. "If you have a proactive agent using their connections, you may have been able to sell players.

"I think that summer, at least 11 clubs in the [English] Premier League and the Championship paid a transfer fee for a goalkeeper. So there was definitely a market for the summer for goalkeepers.

"When you're working on players, some clubs react, some need pushing, but until someone went out and really aggressively went to try and move those players on, you're not going to know if you're going to move them or not."

He added: "I do believe, if the administrators had appointed myself or World in Motion [one of the UK's foremost sports management companies] to sell their assets, we would have gone to market to try and sell those assets.

"Now whether we would have sold them, we can all argue whether we'd have got some money in, I don't know, but we would certainly have had a go at it.

"It would not have been a job that you would have gone, 'oh god, I've got to try and sell these amazing players', you are going to market, and by mid-March, you may have come back and said we've got interest in three of your players, can you do a deal with the clubs.

"So, it is hard because we're going back in time, but if you look at the market and the top 10 players that you would have on the list as the agent, and the market that summer, I think there would have been a chance to by mid-March you could at least go back to the administrators and say we have interest.

"Now if you're saying to me, I need to have come back at the the end of March, with money in my hands for the player, that's a different matter, but by the end of March, you'd have a clear idea of which clubs are look for [players]."

Five or six of the players had buyout clauses inserted in March, 2012, and with the exception of Mr Naismith, who had an offer from Premier League club West Brom, there were no approaches from any of them during the four month period Rangers was in administration.

Joel Pannick, a registered football intermediary, was asked if that revealed anything in relation to whether clubs were interested in these players during the administration or the players desire to leave?

"I think that it was clear that a number of these players were certainly of the ability of the playing level to be interesting for Premier League clubs.

"So my argument, in my experience, suggests to me that it wasn't because these players were priced out of the market, it wasn't because these players weren't good enough to play in the Premier League or other high level leagues and it wasn't because it wasn't well known either that the club at this time was in a big mess financially or that there weren't these buyout clauses available.

"My experience is that this took place during the time where business isn't done.

"There are many conversations throughout the year, it's a never ending cycle.

"As soon as one transfer window or registration period closes work for the next one begins.

"In September, I start working for transfers, not for the following January market but for the following summer's market.

"If I have a client of mine I'm representing who has under 18 months or under two years remaining on his current employment contract, I may start working on his behalf, thinking, 18 months to two years in the future.

"But the reality of the market is that until you are much closer to the time of a transfer window or registration period opening, deals are not committed to. Buying clubs don't usually agree to sign contracts, sign players, agree to part ways with money long before the player is available to join them. It doesn't make sense for them to do so."

He added: "In the case of an international goalkeeper like Allan McGregor, there would have been interest amongst Premier League teams or other good teams based around Europe around the world in signing a player of this level, at the price mentioned, but the reality of the situation, in my opinion is that in February, March in April in May each year, deals are usually not agreed."