Forget Rangers' financial woes – no price can be put on what club owes returning manager Walter Smith

COMEBACKS CAN be a capricious business. Rangers will probably retain the championship today, securing their first back-to-back titles in a decade. In so doing, the Ibrox institution will not only be elevated to its highest standing domestically across the past ten years. Further enhanced will be the reputation of Walter Smith that many were convinced the nine-in-a-row Rangers manager had set himself up to ruin when agreeing to return to a club in the grubber in 2007.

Smith only did so because, having stepped back into the role of chairman, his old friend and Rangers owner David Murray persuaded him to take the plunge once more. Murray then backed his manager by sanctioning a spending splurge on players not seen since the wild days of Dick Adovcaat, and, as recent years have painfully demonstrated, one not obviously affordable. Yet, without Smith's 14 million spend on transfer fees, the largest by a Scottish club in this period, Rangers would not be on the brink of something truly remarkable.

Indeed, in the Old Firm domain, only a Rangers led by Murray would have reacted as they did to the loss of the 10m Champions League booty resulting from the qualifying loss to Kaunas. Sensibly appearing then to fill the huge hole with the 7.8m sale of Carlos Cuellar, they didn't let it lie in the bank before splashing out on Steven Davis, Maurice Edu and Pedro Mendes... and four months later admitted the entire squad was up for sale.

Yet however much Rangers may be in the grip of Lloyds, Murray's high-risk strategy in those final three weeks of August 2008 can be pinpointed as the starting point for Rangers toppling Celtic to become Scotland's top team.

Murray, then, even if perhaps through mismanagement, played a central role in delivering the club from the title wilderness. Yet his name won't be chanted along with that of Smith if Rangers are crowned champions at Easter Road today. And he probably won't be back at Ibrox if the team have reason to return there for a party this evening. A second spell as chairman that ended a year and a half ago won't be remembered fondly – in sharp contrast to Smith's second tour of duty, which has rightly earned him saviour status.

"The thought of it not working out would not have put me off coming back," Smith says. "You have to be prepared to take up a challenge or nothing is worthwhile. We have done that, and done that well – regardless of Sunday or the outcome of this game. If we retain the championship, that will be six trophies in three years, plus a European final. It would be a nice way to answer the 'We Deserve Better' campaign."

Ah, lest we forget the banner held up by some supporters at McDiarmid Park in January 2009 as Rangers trailed Celtic by seven points in a title race that seemed on course to provide their bitter rivals a fourth consecutive championship.

The protest was truly naff, but ultimately, Rangers followers do deserve better. From us in the football media, that is. All that tends to be said or written is that Rangers are up for sale, obtainable for the price of the 31m debt to evil bank asset-strippers Lloyds, and could be sold to a consortium led by London property developer Andrew Ellis, who is currently carrying out due diligence but has yet to submit an offer. That hardly joins up many of the dots in this issue. There have been precious few attempts to do that, either by accident or design. Blaming Lloyds for Rangers' debt position instead of Murray is the equivalent of pointing the finger at hedge fund managers and not the Glazer family for the debt mountain with which Manchester United are saddled. And, as we know, that simply doesn't happen.

Moreover, there was not a word of comment or follow-up on the sports pages after the latest accounts from Murray Sports, the spoke of the Murray business umbrella that effectively owns Rangers. They showed that anyone buying the football club could find themselves liable for loan notes and accrued interest totalling 108m, in addition to the club's published 31m debt. Essentially, Murray International Holdings (MIH) loaned Rangers 60m, the unpaid interest on which now stands at 48m.

Therefore, if these loans are not called in on point of sale, Murray would require to take a massive hit. With MIH's bank debt running at more than 700m in their last published accounts, are we to believe that Murray would be willing, or able, to make such a personal sacrifice to be rid of Rangers? It doesn't make sense when, across the next two years, the club can expect to make profit in the region of 20m. Would Lloyds allow this tidy little cash cow – one with an ever-lower cost base seemingly being driven down without any diminishment of the team's domestic competitiveness – to be removed from a Murray portfolio which otherwise seems only to comprise companies haemorrhaging the folding stuff?

What, precisely, would be the wisdom of that?

Murray's successor as Rangers chairman, Alistair Johnston, has admitted that the club has a complicated relationship with the Murray Group. He has also made plain that turning profit isn't the same as debt reduction. People wonder how Rangers' debt might still be at 28m even in the event of full-yearly profits expected to be the region of 9m. But that can happen if these monies are being used to plug gaps elsewhere in the Murray Group. Even with the loss of Kris Boyd, Madjid Bougherra and a couple of others, Rangers could still win the league again next year and, even with the need to negotiate a qualifying round in the Champions League, make the 12m-earning group stages. Therefore, does it not make sense for Lloyds to keep hold of Rangers, at least in the highly unlikely event of a potential buyer being willing to take on the 139m of liabilities that could be tagged on to ownership of the club? Alas, Smith confesses: "The financial aspects of it (the relationship between Rangers Football Club, Murray Holdings and Lloyds Bank] remain a bit of a mystery.

"I don't know exactly how it will work out with the bank plan that has been put in place and that we have had to come into line with," Smith says. "Although we have been cutting back recently, cutting our staff and wages down, this (summer] would be the first time it would be implemented. We have yet to be told what will happen if we are successful in winning the league and if we do get the Champions League money, or what happens to the season ticket money that comes in."

Smith can assume there will be slim pickings from all revenue streams. Yet, removing Europe from the equation, he has made a veritable feast of those in the past year and a half. Oddly for both Smith and Murray, on the park, prudence has paid. For the first time since the pair transformed the Scottish football landscape, Rangers are getting more bang for their buck than city rivals once boastful of being brand leaders in that. A section of the Celtic support remain convinced that the debt cloud Rangers operate under because of MIH's potentially-volcanic borrowing will eventually ground the Ibrox football team. In the meantime, though, they continue to fly right through it.

Central to that is Smith's sheer force of will; his force of personality. That has proved priceless. It just so happens it is far from the only element of this whole business on which it seems impossible to attach a cost figure.