Barry Ferguson has revealed that he completed his return to Rangers (IL) with just ten minutes remaining of the 2005 January transfer window.
The midfielder signed for former Blackburn manager Graeme Souness in August 2003 but 18 months later the Ibrox club had found the funds to put together a bumper EBT package to bring Ferguson back to Ibrox.
A paltry contract worth less than £10,000 per week went through without a word with the SFA and SPL while Ferguson was promised £2.5m tax free in an off shore trust.
Had Rangers (IL) put that through in the same manner as Celtic and other clubs it would have cost them over £5m with National Insurance and Income Tax included.
Recalling the offer to return to Ibrox Ferguson told Simon Ferry: “That was me I just turned again. After moving the family down I felt bad. I was selfish but listen when the team you support comes calling again I went back up the road.
“I remember I went in and said to him (Blackburn manager Mark Hughes) and he asked why and told me he wanted to build the team around me.
“He came back to me about five days later and said he really wanted me to stay.
“He said if I was 100 per cent certain in going he needed to go sign a replacement and he went and got Robbie Savage.
“The day the window was shutting everything was agreed about 12 o’clock.
“I came up the road, it was off at 4, back on at 6, off at 8. Then I never heard anything.
“I went through to Edinburgh to do my medical and everything was okay – then it was off, on, off, on.
“Eventually ten minutes before the window shut the paper work went in and it was done.”
In July HMRC won a ruling at the Supreme Court that the ‘EBT’ pays were disguised remuneration and liable to income tax and national insurance.
Souness also received an EBT payment from Rangers (IL).