Gordon Smith is adamant he knows when to back off and let Ally McCoist do his job

AS players, Gordon Smith and Ally McCoist were never team-mates. Only once were they opponents on the pitch. In the early 1980s, when England's top flight was known as the First Division, the two strikers were engaged in a shoot-out. McCoist scored for Sunderland that day, but Smith went one better, netting the winner in a 2-1 victory for Brighton & Hove Albion.

As the two prepare, 30 years later, to forge a working relationship at Rangers, the question for many is who will come out on top this time?

If that sounds a little unfair, especially given the compliments they have showered upon each other already, it is also the inevitable sideshow for anyone given the dreaded "director of football" role, handed to Smith by Craig Whyte, the new owner at Ibrox.

While the position has long been accepted on the continent, it is treated with the utmost suspicion in Britain, where it is seen either as a polite way to move an ageing manager upstairs or a device with which to undermine the man in the dugout. The last thing McCoist wants during his first season at the helm is the distraction of a power struggle behind the scenes.

Part of the problem is that the director of football's role is ill-defined. Sometimes, the job now occupied by Smith has its value questioned, as it was by Celtic players who wanted to deal a little more with Kenny Dalglish, and a little less with John Barnes. More frequently, it is accused of carrying too much weight, as it was during the "reign" of Dennis Wise, right, at Newcastle United. He recommended a player to Kevin Keegan, and when the manager said "thanks but no thanks", Wise went ahead and signed him anyway.

That, says Smith, will never happen at Ibrox. You won't catch him presenting McCoist with a fait accompli, as Roman Abramovich is rumoured to have done to Carlo Ancelotti with Fernando Torres. If he were a manager, he would not tolerate the practice, even though he experienced it during a spell in Switzerland at the end of his playing career.

"I'd gone to Basel and dealt with the general manager while the coach just took the team. I found out later that the coach didn't really want me. The manager brought me in, which was why the coach wasn't as keen to start with. But that isn't going to happen here. The manager has ultimate responsibility for all the transfers. It has to be that way.I never really understood how they worked that in other countries. Somebody else buying the players? Chelsea have a continental background, and that's how they do it in other countries, somebody else deciding 'there's your player'. Maybe the Chelsea managers have been used to it previously. It won't happen here."

The issues for Rangers are more subtle. McCoist, by his own admission, had no say in the appointment of Smith. And Smith arrived too late to voice an opinion on McCoist's promotion. What if they do not agree on the kind of player most likely to succeed in Scotland? If Smith's primary job is sourcing transfer targets, he had better make sure it is on McCoist's behalf, otherwise they will spend the next couple of years banging their heads against a brick wall.

The way a club conducts its transfer business also raises questions of accountability. Is it fair to judge Ancelotti's Chelsea years if he was not in charge of signing players? How is Smith's success in the transfer market to be measured if the buck stops with someone else? "I'm not trying to abdicate responsibility here, but ultimately the manager will be responsible. I'll play a part and they've been happy so far for me to be part of the discussions and to make recommendations, but it's down to Ally McCoist ultimately. It's whether he wants that player in. He'll take opinions and build that into it, but it's his job. None of us will be stepping in."

Uncertainty as to the nature of Smith's job is not helped by his title. If the remit is to direct football, what is the manager's? On the continent, men in Smith's position tend to be called general managers or sporting directors. Their task is to organise scouting trips, contracts, youth policy, all those things that the head coach of a high-profile club cannot do justice to in the modern game.

Which is exactly what Rangers want from Smith, who has been an agent, as well as chief executive of the Scottish Football Association. The Ibrox club, more than most, have cause to call upon his experience. Without the money to buy a first team off the shelf, the job is too time-consuming for McCoist to handle on his own, especially at a big club where there are countless other commitments. Smith and the network of scouts he oversees will be charged with identifying players who can then be developed and, if they're lucky, sold on for a higher fee. Frank Arnesen made an artform of it at PSV Eindhoven, where Ronaldo, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Jaap Staam and Arjen Robben were among his finds. In a later spell at Chelsea, who were wealthy enough to buy finished products, his efforts were marginalised.

At Ibrox, the work has already begun. McCoist has been to South America in search of a player who can be as valuable to Rangers as Emilio Izaguirre is to Celtic. Smith talks of his contacts in Australia, Africa and Asia.He will also work alongside Jimmy Sinclair, director of the club's youth academy, in an effort to make the most of Murray Park, a facility he describes as the best in Scotland "by a mile".

The flipside of plundering cheaper markets is that there are greater risks surrounding a player's character, or his potential to settle in Scotland, but needs must. Last week, Neil Danns and Craig Conway rejected Rangers in favour of Leicester City and Cardiff City respectively. "It's difficult," says Smith. "Most of us realise that, in terms of competing with the top clubs in England, which Rangers were (able to do] a few years back, they can't now. The biggest change now though is that the Championship clubs are also paying high wages. It used to be they were just the English second division and you'd think, 'we can beat them'. Now it's not like that."

Smith and McCoist will have their work cut out in the months ahead, trying to persuade players that there is more to football than money, hoping to uncover some bargains further down the food chain. If they are both pulling in the same direction, that will be half the battle.