IT began with a purported billionaire with wealth “off the radar” moving to buy Rangers, the Glasgow club he said was close to his heart.

It ended with liquidation, vilification and finally vindication for the former club owner, venture capitalist Craig Whyte who was accused and now acquitted of fraud after he became “the fall guy” in connection with his purchase of Rangers for £1 from Sir David Murray in May, 2011.

Craig Whyte, it is said, played the stock market at the age of 15 and at the time had more than £20,000 in his bank account investing weekend wage packets.

Sir David Murray, the owner of Rangers, whose own group of companies was in financial difficulty, was under pressure to sell. Lloyds Banking Group were unhappy with the club’s £18 million debt, wanted out of football and were concerned about a tax case with a potential £50million bill which could bankrupt the club.

After a series of failed bids for the club, Mr Whyte arrived with a promise of investment, and the removal of the debt.

But behind the pitch from Mr Whyte, there was a series of failed business dealings, concerns not been missed by the club’s Independent Board Committee (IBC) which assessed bids on behalf of shareholders.

At the age of 40, the man who was once touted as “the next Richard Branson” had either run or been a key director of a string of companies that had either gone out of business or under threat of being dissolved, owing millions of pounds.

The IBC, featuring former chairman Alistair Johnston, Martin Bain, John Greig, John McClelland and Donald McIntyre, had sufficient worries about Mr Whyte’s bid to issue a statement demanding that the new owners specify their financial commitment to the club.

Despite the allegations and court cases, the then 29-year-old insisted at his Monte Carlo home in May, 2000 that he was debt-free. “I don’t owe anyone any money - least of all the taxman”.

The Whyte bid, which included a share purchase agreement pledge to pay a £18m debt owed to Lloyds, was initially rejected by the IBC.

But the former Kelvinside Academy pupil was steadfast, saying: “Obviously I’m a massive Rangers fan and have been since I was a boy. I’m here first and foremost because I’m a Rangers supporter. I also see a great opportunity and think that Rangers can be a great worldwide brand.”

The deal was accepted by club owner Sir David Murray, with Mr Johnston saying he received a warning from the bank that if they stood in the way of the deal they were going to cancel the club’s credit line.

Mr Johnston, in an email shown to the jury in the case claimed the club was being “throttled into submission” by the bank, months before Mr Whyte took over and further argued the Rangers board were “masquerading as directors” effectively “stooges” for the “objective” of the bank.

It took a BBC documentary eleven years later and five months after Mr Whyte’s successful £1 bid to take over the reins of Rangers from Sir David Murray, for the Insolvency Service - the agency that probes misconduct by directors - to confirm that in fact, Mr Whyte had been disqualified as a director in June 2000, for seven years.

In or around 1998 claims had been brought against Mr Whyte by the liquidator of his Dennistoun-based security firm Vital UK for misfeasance, breach of duty and negligence, and claims were subsequently settled for a sum of £150,000.

HIS critics said Mr Whyte’s wealth was indeed off the radar, so far off it that the club failed to see any of it.

Sir David Murray, on the other hand, was criticised for not taking enough care in his bid to find a new club custodian, fuelled by Lloyds putting pressure on him to dump the club debt, as his own group of companies, which owned Rangers, was crippled by financial troubles of its own.

It was the success of his metals, mining and property businesses – along with the support of the bank – which led him to initially secure huge profits and allowed him to fund lavish spending at Rangers.

But the financial crisis in 2009 led to a huge downturn in business, leaving Murray International Holdings Limited – deep in debt to Lloyds.

That crisis forced Murray to strip down, restructure and sell off parts of his empire to try to bring down the debt.

Added to the Murray woes was a potential bill if they lost a dispute with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) over the use of Employee Benefit Trusts to pay Rangers staff and players, which would have driven the club into insolvency - leaving the bank massively out of pocket.

Three months after Mr Whyte’s takeover Rangers failed to make the lucrative group stages of the Champions League after losing a qualifier against Swedish side Malmo and the rot set in.

On February 14, 2012 Rangers appointed administrators Duff and Phelps after the club failed to meet PAYE and VAT demands of around £9m owed to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Liquidation followed four months later.

Two years later Mr Whyte was released on bail for the first time after appearing in court over an alleged fraudulent takeover of the Ibrox club in 2011. This came 24 hours after he arrived in the UK having been detained in Mexico.

The businessman faced a string of allegations included claims he funded a controlling share in Rangers by selling off season tickets - after pretending to then chairman Sir David Murray he had cash of his own.

By then proceedings to liquidate Murray International Holdings (MIH) were already under way having had net debts of £346.7 million at the end of June 2013, although Mr Murray insisted the figure had “changed quite a lot since then”.

And by the time the case came to the High Court in Glasgow, Mr Whyte, now, 46, was denying two charges against him centred around clearing the club’s £18 million bank debt by getting a £24m loan from London-based Ticketus against three years of future club season ticket sales.

The allegations Mr Whyte was acquitted of included that he pretended to Mr Murray and others that funds were unconditionally available to make all payments agreed to in a share purchase agreement.

These were also said to include, the £2.8m “small tax case” liability, the £1.7m health-and-safety liability plus £5m for the playing squad.

He was also charged for the first time ever in Scotland with “financial assistance” under the Companies Act - which also centres on the Ticketus deal.

MURRAY told the trial he would “categorically not” have handed the club over if he had known about the Ticketus deal saying it was “selling the future”.

But Whyte’s QC Donald Findlay told the jury that a “whole range of people” knew about the deal to help fund the takeover by selling rights to future season ticket sales including the Takeover Panel, the independent body which polices company mergers and buyouts, and that Mr Murray and his advisers could have found out.

He described Mr Whyte as the “fall guy” for the state of the club and a “pantomime villain”, asserting that Mr Murray and his advisers did not care how Mr Whyte funded the takeover.

The prosecutors maintained that the key to Whyte’s guilt came in his signing up to a share purchase agreement which included a clause that proved crucial in the case, that said he and his company Wavetower “warrant and undertakes” that it has “immediately available from its own and third party resources on an unconditional basis (subject only to completion) the cash resources necessary....”

But Mr Findlay said the agreement had referred to using “third party funding”, which by definition showed that the money had conditions attached, and that in any case Mr Murray and his people knew there were other investors and could have tried to find out who they were and how it was being financed. Mr Findlay repeated one phrase in explaining the Murray position: “They did nothing”.

Mr Findlay, in summing up the defence’s case, revealed an email sent from Mr Murray to his legal adviser David Horne two days before the takeover was complete showing “the pressure” that was on to sell to Mr Whyte.

The message talked about the “need now to get this over the line or we will face the purchaser walking away and any hope of stability and funding will be lost.”

It added: “There is no realistic alternative or season tickets and the future playing squad details will not make good reading. Nothing is perfect, but we do not have a viable alternative. We have tried for some time to attract a new buyer and now we need to complete. The fall out of no deal is really serious.”