A £33million takeover of Rangers could go through on Friday, reports claimed today.

A revised proposal has been tabled to owner Sir David Murray by a consortium fronted by London-based property developer Andrew Ellis and former Leeds United chairman Chris Akers.

Funding is said to have been secured in the Middle East after Akers travelled to present proposals over an investment in the SPL champions to wealthy Arab businessmen based in Dubai and Qatar.

The deal – named ‘Project Charlotte’ as a play on Sir David Murray’s business HQ in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square – which has been offered to the Rangers owner would have to be accepted by noon on Friday and announced in the first instance to the Stock Exchange, although sources at the club today said it was ‘premature’ to say something would happen by the end of this week.

The proposal would see Murray paid £3.1million for his 57 per cent shareholding in Rangers currently held in Murray International Holdings.

He owns 91per cent of the club’s shares – some of which are held in Murray Sports – but it is believed Murray cannot sell those without approval from South African-based Ibrox director Dave King, who invested £20million into Murray Sports for shares over a decade ago and remains linked with a takeover himself.

The consortium would then pay a cash sum of £20million into Rangers’ bank account to slash their debts with Lloyds Banking Group, reducing the overdraft to around £8m.

The Ellis/Akers plan would then see £10million invested into the club as working capital for new players and running costs between now and the end of the year.

Despite reports today claiming the deal was all but done David Gilmour, spokesman for Marlbrough Investments who are handling the financial side of the deal on the consortium’s behalf, would only say: “We are subject to the takeover panel.

“Rangers is a public listed company and we can’t discuss anything or give out information. This is a sensitive issue.”

Ellis could not be contacted for comment.

Akers, who once made £301million by selling a company he initially founded for just £25,000, is well known on the football scene and was first mentioned as a partner for Ellis last month.

As SportTimes revealed last month, senior figures at Rangers believed Ellis would not be in a position to proceed after his initial interest in taking over from Murray was posted to the Stock Exchange back in March.

They doubted he could secured funding, but in the past few weeks Ellis has accelerated his plans through Akers and has also travelled to Edinburgh for face-to-face talks with Murray.

The club is also under investigation by HMRC for payments made into employee offshore trusts, which would need any buyer to be given a warranty from the seller that any future tax bill would be picked up.

There remains claims that Ellis is interested in the G51 property development around Ibrox, and that would also be a reason why Murray would be keen to retain a shareholding in the club.

Effectively, the consortium would buy the controlling interest in Rangers by taking over his 57 per cent stake – but Murray would still hold onto his share of the 34 per cent of the club retained in Murray Sports.

He is also likely to be offered an honorary president’s position after 21 years at the helm of the club he bought for £6m.

Rangers chairman Alastair Johnston clashed publicly with Ellis last month when he said he doubted whether he would be able to complete a deal, and that the club would be proceeding with plans based on no change in ownership.

He claimed Ellis had not spoken to him or anyone at Rangers – only representitives of the Murray Group. Ellis denied he had rejected requests for meetings and said he was pressing ahead. He did,

however, admit to this paper for the first time that he was not working alone when Gilmour had previously stated he was.

It is believed it was at that time Akers became involved in the plan to help with the funding. A fortnight ago, after 10 days of discussions with Lloyds, Walter Smith agreed to stay on as manager for another year, with Ally McCoist set to take over as boss next season.

Ellis has previously said he would offer Smith a new deal and it’s unlikely any changes would take place should he takeover, but the future of the rest of the hierarchy – Johnston, chief executive Martin Bain and others – would be in doubt if indeed Friday does see a change in ownership at Ibrox for the first time in over two decades.