Walter Smith has revealed his biggest regret over the last decade- and it doesn’t involve Dave Murray.
When Smith returned to Ibrox ten years ago Murray cranked up the club’s use of EBT’s in order to bring in players that the club couldn’t afford.
At the same time the Edinburgh based businessman refused to pay up on the wee tax case when the club were found guilty of illegal payments to Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer. Campbell Ogilvie failed to declare those payments to the SFA and SPL.
Those decisions led to Murray selling the club to Craig Whyte with the club put into liquidation just over a year later.
Smith walked away shortly after Whyte took over but refused to go into any detail about the man that Murray took a pound coin from.
Instead it’s Charles Green that he takes issue with- the man that he served as a non-executive director and chairman!
In the Daily Record Smith claimed: “What happened with Ally McCoist (handing over the brown brogues of dignity) was my biggest regret but going on to the board was the biggest error I made.
“I wasn’t comfortable doing it and should have followed my instincts. I should not have gone on the board at all, never mind agree to be chairman.
“I think I was chairman for one board meeting before I walked away.
“You do it thinking you know the background but it opened up another world to me I had no idea about. I was way, way out of my depth.”
Smith agreed to become a director shortly before the new club launched a share issue with fans paying 70 pence per share. Those shares are now almost as worthless as the debenture seats Smith helped launch for Murray in the nineties.
With some hints of supporter unrest over Mr Green, Smith decided to become chairman in time for the launch of the 2013/14 season ticket campaign.
Explaining his role as chairman he added: “I realised quite quickly I wasn’t going to have any influence – he didn’t really want me there.
“They only wanted me there to be used as a front. It’s not nice when you eventually come to the conclusion that that is the case.
“When he asked me to become chairman I thought to myself, ‘That might give me more influence’. But in the next board meeting there was a vote to bring him back on to the board. That’s when I thought, ‘No, I’m off’. And that was the end of it.
“So to play a part in that is, if anything, frankly embarrassing. Just to have been involved in it. You think you are doing the right thing and you think you are helping if somebody comes and asks you to. He asked me, I didn’t go to him.”
When he quit as chairman Smith kept quiet rather than explain to the fans his reasons for quitting.
Having backed Murray to the hilt there’s little doubt that Smith had the second biggest role in the administration, liquidation, downfall and demise of Rangers Football Club.