McLeish uncomfortable in the EBT spotlight
The broadcaster had brought McLeish and Joe Jordan together to preview the meeting of the clubs that they used to manage but the Rangers crisis was brought up.
A BBC documentary in May claimed that £1.7m had been paid into an EBT for McLeish during his four and a half years at Ibrox.
Two SPL titles won during that period could be removed from the record books with McLeish uncomfortable while being questioned on the matter.
“The stripping of titles is a non-starter,” he reponded. “I know it’s been mooted, but personally, I don’t think that it should go against Rangers.
“I was at the club at the time and had lawyers who looked at the contracts and everything was okayed. It’s not something I’m particularly comfortable about discussing.
“There was no cloak and dagger stuff. My lawyer looked at it and it was the type of contract that you know that going to a club like Rangers or Celtic, you would be expecting.
“I reduced the wages by half, so I’m not guilty of bringing any players in at top prices. It was in my era at Rangers it was about the opposite – I was working with the club to reduce the costs and wages and at the same time keeping the competitive edge, which we did.”
The BBC documentary claimed that Dado Prso, Nacho Novo, Alex Rae, Dan Eggen, Egil Ostenstad, Gavin Rae, Federico Nieto, Gregory Vignal, Jean-Alain Boumsong and others received payments through EBT’s.
Boumsong has spoken out about how he felt uncomfortable with a contract that paid him an element of his wages tax free with £630,000 paid to an EBT before he was sold to Graeme Souness at Newcastle for an £8m profit six months after joining Rangers.
David Murray introduced EBT’s to the club with his former manager defending the role of the former Ibrox owner.
McLeish added: “David is a businessman, a succesful businessman, and he had a dream of Rangers winning the European Cup- he tried everything in his power to do that.”
CLICK HERE for Lambert axes Alan Hutton
Follow Video Celts on Twitter and Facebook