CRAIG WHYTE
‘He’s got more balls than something with very large balls’
Ex-Rangers chairman Alastair Johnston
CRAIG Whyte and his dad celebrated Rangers’ last major title win in 2011 as though he had masterminded it himself, within 10 days of taking control at Ibrox.
On the day of the club’s SPL title win, then chairman Alastair Johnston watched on with former chairman Dave King as Whyte’s father treated his son like an all-conquering hero.
Johnston, who reluctantly handed power at Rangers over to Whyte, said he got an almost instant bad vibe about him in intense meetings to discuss the handover from David Murray.
He said it came as no surprise to find out via the Record that Whyte is involved in another seedy debt-busting scheme.
Johnston said: “Everything you have been telling me about Craig Whyte’s latest venture is consistent with the Craig Whyte character and his processes.
“I met his father, Tom, at Rugby Park when Rangers won the SPL in 2011.
“I believe he has hidden behind his father in business for many years.
“I couldn’t really believe the balls they both had at that Kilmarnock game. I was sitting beside Dave King and Craig Whyte, and Craig’s dad was sitting in the row behind us.
“His dad was reaching over at the final whistle and telling him, right in front of us, ‘Well done, you’ve done it, here’s to many more of them son’ and blah blah.
“He’d owned the company for 10 days for Christ’s sakes and this guy was treating him as though he’d won the league for Rangers.
“To this day I doubt if he’d ever been to a Rangers match.
“But Craig was standing there and taking the plaudits with this heroic air like, ‘Aye, it is all
down to me’.” Accountant Johnston, now back on the Rangers board, was one of several people the Record contacted to verify a phonetics expert’s opinion that banned director Craig Whyte has been a key figure in a firm that seeks to cheat creditors and dodge bills.
We told yesterday how the Whytes’ Fortress Restructuring venture, fronted by Tom, 73, gives advice on ripping off creditors and dodging redundancy money on “past-their-sellby-date employees”. Johnston worked with Whyte for 10 days as chairman at Ibrox as he tried to enable a smooth transition from Murray, which proved
impossible. In that time, he shared intense and bizarre meetings that revealed the toxic intentions of asset-stripper Whyte – whose main business plan was to pay zero bills as the club headed for administration, then figure out how to make the best return for himself.
Johnston, who returned to Ibrox in June, 2017, said he was angered by the attitude of Whyte when he refused to let club legend John Greig unfurl the league flag at Ibrox as the 2012 season kicked off.
He said: “It happened to be 50 years since John had joined Rangers, to the very week, and he had been a player then the manager then a director and the greatest-ever Ranger.
“Craig Whyte, as far as I was aware, had never even seen Rangers up to that Kilmarnock game and he’d certainly had nothing to do with their success.
“So I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if John raised the flag’.
“But that got thrown out and that was more galling for anything for me because John never got to raise the flag in all the championships he was involved in. But to see Whyte march out with the big grin to raise the flag, well, he’s got more balls than something with very large balls.”
Johnston, a director with global sport and talent management group IMG, first met Whyte for a three-hour meeting at a Glasgow lawyer’s office. He later attended a similar meeting with Greig.
He said: “John was very sceptical about him and Whyte was buttering him up and saying he was a big Rangers fan and claimed he was at a certain game.
“John said to him, ‘Do you remember the goal I scored in that game’, and, of course, Whyte said it was great and all that.
“And then in the toilet shortly afterwards John said to me, ‘That guy’s a lying bum, I never scored in that game’.”
Johnston was stunned at how Whyte seemed to be fixated only on contracts that he could break as he prepared to take over at Ibrox.
He said: “He never ever asked about business plans. He was never interested in the normal stuff that a healthy business has to be on top of – like money, financing, accounting.
“He was only interested in what contracts we had. That was a big part of exposing him. What we now know is that he was looking at what contracts he could break, what people they could refuse to pay.
“He was thinking, ‘I don’t have the money to buy Rangers or any money to put in so I’m not going to pay anybody’.
“And he had no shame about it. You need to have no shame in order to conduct your life the way he has done – and what you are telling me right now is just another example of that.” Johnston said it would be interesting if the Insolvency Service formally investigates Whyte’s latest scheme. He said: “Craig Whyte is a fox. He is a dumb fox and a smart fox at the same time, sometimes really stupid and sometime really conniving and clever. “In terms of whether or not he’s breaking the law, it’s an interesting one. But people should be warned about what he is up to so they know to steer clear.” On the taped conversations that prove Tom and Craig Whyte were lying about the younger man’s involvement on the debtdodging enterprise, Johnston said: “When I listened to the tapes of the voices there were certainly two different people but there’s no doubt one was Craig Whyte. “The other voice was so different it would be odd to think they were even in the same family. “It made me think of the time when Whyte was tried for alleged fraud and his advocate Donald Findlay thought it best that he didn’t give evidence, presumably on the basis that people can tell Craig Whyte was lying by the fact that his lips are moving.” The Record called the Fortress Restructuring number that Whyte has previously answered on but this time the phone rang out. We also spoke to Tom Whyte and asked that Craig Whyte ring us to respond to claims being made in our investigation. He failed to respond. An email to the Fortress address on the website went unanswered, as did our request to Whyte’s lawyer for him to get in touch.