RANGERS' directors must now decide when to formally place the club in administration.

The notice of intention to appoint an administrator, lodged at the Court of Session yesterday, gives the board breathing space and the business some protection from creditors.

Effectively anyone pursuing any form of action against Rangers now has to apply to the court to be allowed to do that.

If the notice is withdrawn or is not carried out those protections would disappear.

Similarly, Rangers cannot be put into liquidation or receivership but those could become options if the notice lapses.

The club said its preference is to go through a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

It stated: "The club has put forward a CVA proposal to HMRC in which creditors would be paid and provision made for the legacy HMRC case, commonly known as the 'big tax' case.

"This, if approved by credi-tors within a month, would minimise any points deduction and enable the club to participate in European football next season."

Before a CVA can happen, a licensed insolvency practitioner has to be appointed through the courts. Experts said last night this step is usually a formality. The administrator will take over the running of the Ibrox club as interim chief executive.

It would be up to the administrator how closely he or she wanted to work with Craig Whyte and the Rangers board.

But the playing staff, management and ancillary staff would all report to the administrator.

Administrators often take a short period to familiarise themselves with businesses they enter before beginning to look at ways to run the company as a going concern.

This often leads to costs being cut and Rangers stated there will potentially be jobs lost both on and off the pitch.

An administrator has to act in the best interests of all creditors and the club benefits from protection offered by the process including a freezing of all actions by creditors.

Rangers could trade for up to a year in administration before going to the court for an extension, but insolvency practitioners believe it is unlikely the situation will last that long.

Typically an administrator has three choices when entering a business.

The first is to try to restructure the company then reform its balance sheet. This often utilises the CVA route which Rangers would like to go down as it would preserve the club's registrations and membership of bodies such as the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Premier League.

However, 75% of creditors – with votes based on the value of what they are owed – have to approve the CVA.

With HMRC likely to be the biggest creditor it may prove difficult for the Rangers board to do this.

A second option is to sell the business and assets to a new company or third party which could be a consortium of interested business people or a foreign investor.

But any new entity would have to apply for membership to the SFA and SPL.

The third scenario would see the business being liquidated and its assets sold off.

David McNaught, director of business recovery and insolvency at Johnston Carmichael, said: "The CVA is an option where you want to try to preserve the company.

"It would be more likely they would want to protect a football club than a typical commercial business as it would preserve the position in the league and its registration.

"An administrator has the option of trading on the business and they will look to maximise the value of the assets.

"They will explore all possible avenues."

In the last set of audited accounts available, Rangers had net assets of £70.8 million, based on tangible assets, which are thought to include Ibrox and Murray Park, were valued at £118.7m.