Murray calls for Craig Whyte to hand over Rangers shares

The head of the Blue Knights consortium bidding to buy Rangers, Paul Murray, has told STV News that Craig Whyte should "do the right thing" and hand over his shares in the club.

Mr Murray also said he was disappointed to lose Ticketus's fiancial backing, but understood their position given the uncertainties surrounding Rangers' future.

He said he was determined to press ahead with plans to buy the club after making a conditional offer in partnership with Sale Sharks rugby club owner Brian Kennedy.

Mr Murray said: "We've always said from day one that a CVA is our focus here and that's the main thing, but to effect the CVA we have to get control of Craig Whyte's shares. So that's a condition of the CVA as opposed to a condition of our offer.

"Clearly the mechanics of getting Craig Whyte's shares are going to be complicated, but you'd like to think that if that was the only condition outstanding at the end of the day that he'd do the right thing and do what's best for the club.

"We have working capital from another source now because we didn't feel that the terms that Ticketus were prepared to provide funding were actually right for the club.

"We had a deal with them originally three weeks ago that we were prepared to agree to, and that had been negotiated. They then decided to speak to the Singaporean bidder to try and get a better deal and then he chose to withdraw from the process. They then came back to us and we said we'd do it with them but do it on the original terms and they weren't able to do that.

"There's not a lot of choices. They either accept what they've been offered by the bids and the club closes down, in which case they get a liquidation value.

"It's a pretty straightforward situation: you either accept the highest bid at the moment from ourselves or Bill Miller. If you don't accept that then there's no option but to potentially liquidate the club."

* Listen to the full interview at the top of this page.

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