SFA president Campbell Ogilvie has been cleared by Sir David Murray of involvement in the payment or administering of the controversial Employment Benefit Trust scheme used by Rangers for a decade.
Ogilivie, the former Rangers secretary, was thrust into the spotlight when one of his former colleagues at Ibrox, 86-year-old ex-director Hugh Adam, made allegations of 'under-the-table payments' stretching back into the 1990s and also claimed double contract agreements were in place for players at the club.
This has been denied by two of the leading players at the club in the Nineties, Brian Laudrup and Jorg Albertz.
"Campbell Ogilvie wasn't involved in paying people," said Murray.
When asked if his position at the SFA was in any way conflicted due to the use of EBTs, he added: "No. In no way whatsoever."
This two-contract claim attached to EBTs, also rubbished by Murray, has prompted a Scottish Premier League investigation as, if this was proved to be true, it would be a breach of registration rules that state contractual payments for playing activities must be declared to the governing body.
To date, neither SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster nor his counterpart at the SFA, Stewart Regan, have made any contact with Murray to establish if there is any case to answer, although that may still happen.
The former Rangers owner and chairman said paperwork that had appeared recently in a Sunday newspaper, which appeared to outline payment terms to players into a trust, were no more than letters of intent. They were never binding contracts, he said.
Murray said that by definition, payments into EBTs had to be discretionary and they always were. If two contracts had been in place, he said, then the club would have been unable to mount a defence in the case brought by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs against Rangers' use of them.
The outcome of Rangers appeal to a First Tier Tribunal over the bill served on them by HMRC, which could potentially rise to £49million if found liable, should be known within four weeks.
Murray's Finance Director, Mike McGill, who was present yesterday at a press briefing at Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, said it was important to clarify HMRC's case. "It has to be made clear the use of EBTs was in no way illegal," he said.
Murray and McGill stressed that even if the tribunal finds against Rangers, it is wrong to suggest that is proof of 'illegal payments' to players.
HMRC say Rangers have not paid enough tax on the money paid into the EBTs. The club's defence is they have.
When asked if he was still of the mind that Rangers would get a favourable outcome, based on the assessments given to him by the Murray Group's legal counsel Andrew Thornhill QC, Murray said: "We're confident we have a strong case."
He then spoke of his sympathy for Rangers boss Ally McCoist, who has had to endure the season from hell in his first campaign as boss.
He has emerged as a strong figure in the club's darkest hour having been plunged into administration on February 14.
Murray added: "I feel sorry for Alistair McCoist. In the past at the club there was always a spine of people like myself, Martin Bain, Walter Smith, Richard Gough, David Weir ... I think it always gave a solidity, and there was always a confidentiality there. Nobody leaked anything. Unfortunately that's not there just now.
"It's like a rudderless ship. As soon as somebody, whether that be Paul Murray, gets their hand on the tiller and gives solidity, the better. I hope that happens sooner rather than later."