Craig Whyte has claimed a senior HMRC official admitted a deal should have been struck with Rangers to avoid the insolvency "disaster".

The former Rangers owner - who bought the club in 2011 - has opened up on walking into a £50m debt at Ibrox after purchasing a controlling stake from Sir David Murray.

Whyte - who sold his controlling interest in 2012 - has claimed he made desperate appeals to strike a deal to avoid insolvency as he urged HMRC officials to find a deal with Rangers.

Branding discussions over a deal like "banging your head against a brick wall", Whyte has claimed there was no appetite for a structured deal with the club.

However, after the insolvency "disaster", Whyte has claimed a senior figure at HMRC admitted a deal should have been done with Rangers instead of an "uncontrolled" administration process.

On Craig Campbell SEO's No Money Down Deals podcast, Whyte stated: "The end outcome assuming that the tax authorities refused to do a deal, which they did, although they did say after the disaster of the insolvency process at Rangers, the main guy at HMRC did say 'We should have done a deal', which I told him many times, that he should've done a deal. 

"But they didn't want to know. I told them administration is gonna be a disaster and should be avoided in doing it in this uncontrolled way, but they don't want to listen."

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Explaining the debt situation when he took over as Ibrox owner, Whyte said: "It became clear within a few weeks of buying the club that this debt of at least £50million was going to come due at some point. And the problem with a high-profile business which is in the press every day, you know living in Scotland there are stories about Rangers every day.

"Any other company that has this potential liability that can put them out of business, they can sweep it under the carpet for a bit until the clock chimes as it were. But with a high-profile business, you've got all this social media chat, news media saying there's a devastating debt, so it makes it very difficult for the business to continue.

"I had conversations with HMRC saying 'Look, we've got to find a solution to this and we've got to find it quickly or else the club can't continue'. But trying to deal with a government department is like banging your head against a brick wall, they don't wanna know, they've got their procedures and they are not interested in having a rational conversation like two people in business would have.

"They've got their bureaucratic procedures to go through. It quickly became apparent there was no option but for Rangers to go through an insolvency process which would get rid of the debt, as it were. What should've happened is they should've gone through that insolvency process very quickly, in the first two months, instead of leaving it until several months later."