St Mirren chairman Stewart Gilmour has admitted to being alarmed by an approach to buy the club that involved former Rangers director Gary Withey.
The Paisley club have been up for sale for two years with the most serious interest coming from a local consortium looking to establish a community club.
Current St Mirren director Ken McGeough made the initial approach to Gilmour who was later contacted on the matter by Withey acting on behalf of solicitors Collyer Bristow.
Gilmour is on record stating that his preferred option is a community based consortium headed by current director Richard Atkinson but with that attempt stalling McGeough stepped in.
Once Withey’s role became apparent Gilmour called a halt to the correspondence with McGeough over the sale of the club.
“We’ve no proof that there was any proposed deal to take over St Mirren that would involve Rangers,” Gilmour told BBC Scotland.
“But the whole matter immediately raised concerns from the consortium about the future of St Mirren.
“We were alarmed to see the approach came from the company secretary at Rangers, as their lawyer.
“We realised that they were representing Ken McGeoch and Paul Davies to buy us out and that immediately raised questions for us.
“They had asked for a list of things before even making an offer, which we found a bit uncomfortable and strange.”
If Rangers go into liquidation there is no obvious route back into football for a newco.
Buying out an existing club and repackaging them as Rangers 2012 would be an option but that clearly won’t be via St Mirren.
It’s not known if St Mirren have taken any action to have McGeough removed from their board although he insists that there was nothing sinister to his offer.
He explained: “Collyer Bristow, a well-known and highly respected firm of solicitors, were recommended due to their specialised expertise and knowledge of football clubs.
“My colleague, Paul Davies, and I worked with them for a number of months to advise and oversee our prospective bid for St Mirren.
“This relationship ended by mutual consent in February and we are now being advised by another firm of solicitors.
“We remain optimistic that a deal can be reached with the current board that will benefit St Mirren and bring long-term stability to the club.”
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Cheeky!
I smell shoite…
the lowest of the low…
So the corrupt backdoor lowlife moves continue to be orchestrated by rangers. These disgusting thieving cheats are still at it, looking for new, unthought of ways to circumvent the rules. Clearly being corrupt is all they know, and they say we are paranoid!
Sad to hear Rankers will have no problems surviving after all that’s what the other Murray & his band of dreamers said. Who i am to question?
PS please don’t send the men in white coats for me i’m only kidding.