Ex-Rangers administrators 'missed out' on £2m for creditors through Steven Naismith sale

Naismith, who at the time had a £2m release clause and was on around £20,000 a week, and other senior players took 75% pay cuts in February 2012 when Rangers went into administration, which allowed younger players on lower wages and other staff to take smaller pay cuts.

The Court of Session has previously heard the chief executive of the Scottish Professional Football League Neil Doncaster saying he expected the administrators to have sold or at least tried to sell any players of value after the club went into administration nine years ago.

READ MORE: Rangers FC brand was not valued before being sold for nothing

Everton ended up signing Naismith in July, 2012, was allowed to leave on a free transfer after he rejected a contract transfer from oldco Rangers to the newco.

Details of West Brom's moves came as the liquidators of Rangers oldco BDO sue Paul Clark and David Whitehouse of Duff and Phelps for £56.8m claiming a seriously flawed strategy in raising money for the thousands owed millions after the business collapsed under the ownership of controversial owner Craig Whyte.

The BDO action comes after the Rangers business fell into administration and then liquidation leaving thousands of unsecured creditors out of pocket, including more than 6000 loyal fans who bought £7.7m worth of debenture seats at Ibrox. It was eventually sold to the Charles Green-fronted Sevco consortium for £5.5m.

An email sent to the administrators said that West Brom's offer in March, 2012, would mean he would join during the following summer transfer window, meanwhile the insolvent club would save on wages for April, May June and July.

Dan Ashworth (below), who had been West Brom's sporting and technical director told the administrators in an email: "WBA take on player wage liability but obviously cannot play him until after the window re-opens...."

Mr Ashworth, who is now Brighton and Hove Albion's technical director added that the club had wanted to get things done "early" because they thought there would be interest from other clubs during the official summer transfer window.

Without the release clause, and within a normal transfer window, he estimated Naismith had been worth £4-5m.

He said in his email: "The player is injured and cannot play this season. With the wage savings, cash guaranteed and up-front three to four months early and a guaranteed sale gone through, I feel this is a very attractive deal.

"If this offer is turned down we will save four months wages, see if the player rehabs effectively and pay the clause in July or more onto another player.

Mr Ashworth has told the Court of Session: "As far as I was concerned, WBA had themoney and it would have been paid immediately. WBA were an extremely well run club financially.

"We were always one of the lowest spenders in the English Premier League because he [the owner] ran the club as a business to make money. Therefore, we would have had the cash."

He said the club had taken a "bit of a gamble" but that the deal was worth £2m to the joint administrators of the company and that a wage bill was being taken off their hands.

Mr Ashworth told Lord Tyre, that the club had received an indication from the governing bodies of English football and the English Premier League, where Naismith could have been registered in March, but would not be able to play for the team until the transfer window opened.

But in the meantime, in what he called "an unusual transfer" West Brom would have paid Naismith's wages and the fee.

"I spoke to the Football Association and the Premier League in advance, and they'd said that there would have been a way of doing this transfer otherwise I wouldn't have made the offer," said Mr Ashworth.

"We were not big payers for the Premier League. So, if there was a buyout clause that was widely known by other clubs, it would then go to competing for salary and agents fees and we wouldn't be able to compete with others so we had to try and get in early ahead of any of the others, and hence the timing of the offer," he explained.

He said West Brom had been in the bottom third of the Premier League financially.

"I think the Premier League, at the time and probably still now is split into thirds.

"I think you have probably the bottom six or eight which are either the newly promoted teams or teams that run on a smaller budget, you then have the middle third, which are teams that are more established in the Premier League and can pay more money and then you have the traditional sort of top six, top eight the likes of Tottenham, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, all of which would have substantially more money."

The former West Brom executive also told the court that if the joint administrators had approached other English clubs to explain that Rangers players were for sale at a lower price than their market value they "would have been interested".

He said in his negotiations with Duff and Phelps there was no mention of other players that might be for sale.

But he accepted that once a "for sale" sign was on a player selling clubs losed the upper hand in negotiations.

"That being said, I understand that in an administration you've got to try to sell some of your assets to generate money," he said.

Mr Doncaster told the court earlier that during an early meeting with the administrators there was an "unusual situation" as they confirmed they did not intend to make any players redundant.

He said it had been possible to apply to the world football governing body FIFA for a club which was insolvent to be permitted to move on players outside of official transfer windows if the alternative was a breach of contract.

He said it was also common for clubs to contract to sell a player to another club where the 'sale' does not conclude until the transfer window reopens.

Mr Doncaster said that he was "surprised" that having been offered money for striker Steven Naismith that the administrators did not sell him, "especially because in the circumstances where a sale of the business and assets of the company was pursued, there was always a risk that [the player] would not generate any return at all because he would have been free to refuse a transfer of his employment contract to a Newco."