Former Rangers manager Graeme Souness has confirmed that he voted in favour of Brexit in the referendum on European Union membership last year. Speaking to the Herald Magazine this week the one-time Liverpool and Scotland player said: “I voted to leave. I don’t believe we live in a democracy. I don’t like people who are unelected telling me what I can and can’t do. I didn’t choose them to do that.”

In April Souness was covering a Champions League tie between Leicester City and Atletico Madrid on Irish TV sports channel TV3 during which he attacked the state of English football for its lack of passion.

It prompted the TV3 presenter to joke: "You voted Brexit, didn't you?" Souness, best known these days as a Sky Sports pundit, replied: "I certainly did."

In Glasgow this week for the launch of his new book Football: My Life, My Passion, Souness corroborated that he had indeed voted to leave the EU in last June’s referendum. The EU, he said, is “one gigantic bureaucratic mishmash.”

Souness added that having played and managed in Europe he was not anti-European. But he believes that the the EU itself is anti-democratic.

“I think Britain is a fabulous country and I think we should be in charge of our destiny,” he said. “We shouldn’t have people who are unelected telling us what we can or can’t do. We pass a law and they can overrule it? I didn’t sign up for that when I went to my local library to vote for my MP.”

In 2007, Souness, who won the European Cup three times with Liverpool and guided Rangers to three league titles as manager, was one of 100 Scottish football figures to sign a letter urging voters to reject Scottish independence. Alex Ferguson and Ally McCoist were also signatories.

Asked where he stood on the issue of independence now, Souness told the Herald Magazine,

“I’ll pass on that one.”

Graeme Souness on football, life and moustaches in today's Herald Magazine.