Craig Whyte to sue Duff and Phelps over claims they were supposed to give Rangers back to him

Craig Whyte is thought to be taking legal advice ahead of a bid to sue Rangers administrators Duff and Phelps over claims that they reneged on a deal to return the troubled football club to him.

• Duff and Phelps ‘were supposed to get club in and out of administration quickly.

• News comes as recordings emerge indicating that Duff and Phelps knew of Ticketus deal.

Whyte claims that Duff and Phelps agreed on a £500,000 fee to guide Rangers out of administration before handing the club back to him, however he says they dragged out the process to rack up a bill of around £3m instead.

The news comes as new evidence has appeared which seems to show that in spite of their denials, Duff and Phelps did in fact know about Craig Whyte’s deal with Ticketus to fund his takeover of the club.

The BBC claim to have obtained a recording of a meeting between Whyte and Duff and Phelps senior partner David Grier, in which he openly states that the firm was aware of the agreement.

Whyte has consistently claimed that the company had knowledge of the deal and were copied into a number of crucial emails on the subject, which the administrators have denied.

In the recording, Grier is heard to say: “Now, the fact is that we probably did know what was going on with Ticketus. There’s no email traffic whatsoever.”

Shortly afterwards, Whyte adds: “Yeah. So you knew the structures of the deal. You were dealing with Lloyds.”

To which Mr Grier replies: “Absolutely.”

Duff and Phelps says that the words of the recording have been taken “out of context”.