CHARLES Green immediately made himself at home in the circus of Rangers' takeover saga, with a compelling perform-ance as the frontman for the anonymous consortium set to buy the club.

Not one of the 20-strong group, from Britain, the Middle East and Far East, attended a hastily-arranged press conference at Murray Park, and umpteen questions remain unanswered about the £8.5 million bid to relieve the club from Craig Whyte ownership.

But at least one thing was clear: however long Mr Green is around, there won't be a dull moment.

As he took his seat next to Duff & Phelps administrator David Whitehouse he may have looked Last of the Summer Wine, his words were pure X Factor. Blunt, sure of himself, colourful and expressive, he'd mentioned drugs, prostitution, and a guy in his underpants by the time 40 minutes had elapsed and he rushed off to watch Rangers play at St Johnstone.

He said he'd taken £1 out of his own pocket to seal the transfer of Whyte's shares.

There was shuffling of feet from the club's PR staff watching from the side of the room. He could soon be their boss.

Of course, Rangers need cash, not characters. There has been scepticism bordering on hostility towards Mr Green and accusations his history as chief executive at Sheffield United suggested Rangers were being landed with a cold asset-stripper.

No comfort can be drawn from his consortium: it's not yet known who's in it, how much money they have, how they made it, or how much they want to spend on Rangers.

THE proposal is to enable Rangers to shed debts of at least £55m via a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

It's a pence-in-the-pound deal which would be offered to creditors around May 21 and, ideally, approved by June 6.

There would then be a 28-day "cooling off" period before the CVA would be formally confirmed.

If major creditors HMRC and Ticketus block that agreement there is a secondary proposal to create a "newco".

Either way, Mr Green said his group was committed to owning the club and had spent £1m on compiling their offer. They wouldn't back out of this binding agreement now.

The £8.5m investment will be supplemented by any money secured from Duff & Phelps' £25m legal case against Whyte's lawyers, Collyer Bristow, to be heard in October, and around £3.5m owed to the club for the sale of Nikica Jelavic and others.

"I can tell you there are 20 individuals and families who have pledged support," said Mr Green.

"That support is evidenced by cash in a bank account that the administrators have seen sight of. The money is ring-fenced exclusively for the purchase of Rangers.

"Am I prepared to name names today? Definitely not. What I will tell you is that my mantra was not just to acquire the club on behalf of these individuals, but to make sure the structure going forward was the best for the club and its fans.

"There will not be any investor who owns more than 15%. I don't believe any one person should own a football club. We are not dealing with people of disrepute.

"There are investors from the UK, from the Middle East, from Asia and from the Far East.

"The reason I selected some of these people is because in those areas they have fantastic connections and my vision for Rangers is to develop the brand in those areas.

"Asia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China – the demand for football is insatiable. I believe this product, one of the world's leading football names, can benefit from exposure out there and by setting up academies.

"I was asked if any of the investors were going to the match at Perth. I spoke to one of them yesterday after we'd signed the deal.

IT'S a 14-hour flight from where he lives to get to Heathrow. If he'd been stood at the airport in his underpants, he still couldn't have got here in time for the match.

"The reality is we have a great set of names. I saw speculation with former Newcastle United chairman Freddie Shepherd's name.

"I don't know where these names come from. I understand why the fans need to know the names, but it's not for today. That's for the day the CVA gets voted through.

"Look, if Freddie Shepherd walks through that door and wants to put a cheque in, providing I know that money's not come from drugs, prostitution or any illegal source, that he's got the interest of Rangers at heart, I'll take his cash."

Mr Green then looked around the journalists.

"Do you want to sign a cheque for my consortium? Give me your name, give me some money, let's get it cleared and you can be part of the team." There were no takers.

"I'm not going to turn money down. If I can raise £1billion, I'll raise £1bn. People say you must be mad to want to go into Rangers. I am mad then, because I do want to go in and I want it sorted."

Mr Green isn't the first would-be Rangers saviour. Bill Miller, Bill Ng, Brian Kennedy, Paul Murray and the Blue Knights have all come and gone.

Mr Kennedy had claimed Duff & Phelps would have "blood on their hands" if they chose the wrong buyer having already given preferred bidder status to Miller, who took a look at the books and fled.

But Whitehouse said Mr Green's consortium was "by some considerable margin the best financial deal for the creditors".

The consortium was confident the creditors would agree, said Mr Green.

"If they turn down the cash that is in the pot, then the alternative is they will get nothing. I don't believe it is in the best interests of the people of the UK, who HMRC are effectively responsible to, to turn down an offer where they receive cash to get nothing instead. We are really dependent on HMRC and Ticketus. We can't assume HMRC and Ticketus are going to vote it through. But we hope they will."

AND what about Craig Whyte. Was it true Mr Green had a previous business relationship with the owner now persona non grata at Ibrox?

"Complete and utter rubbish." He said the pair met for the first time in a London hotel 13 days ago.

"I was asked if I had paid him money for his shares. Yes. I paid him a pound, because legally I had to pay him a pound. I gave him his pound back and actually I gave him a pound out of my own pocket so he's made a 100% profit on what he gave David Murray."

And that was that. Mr Green's introduction was fun, but Rangers are no further forward until HMRC and Ticketus can be bought off like Mr Whyte.

'

'

'