"I'll walk away from Rangers if others have more to offer", says Ellis

• Hanging in the balance: No bid to buy Rangers FC has yet been received and the future of the Ibrox club remains unclear. Photograph: Phil Wilkinson

"If there are other people who want to take over Rangers then I won't stand in their way," he told Scotland on Sunday. "The most important thing is what is best for Rangers," he said. "If I feel that somebody else has more to offer then I'll act on that. This is not about individuals, it's about the future of a great football club."

Some people within Ibrox may, with some justification, interpret this as a riposte to Alastair Johnston's criticisms from during the week, in which the chairman cast huge doubt on Ellis's credibility, a claim the Englishman felt was unwarranted. Ellis's words could be deciphered thus: "If you think you've got a lot of other options, Mr Johnston, then I'll disappear and let you sort it out with all these other fantastic bidders."

Ellis knows better than anybody that there are no other bidders. Dave King continues to get mentioned, but he is facing trial in South Africa on 322 counts of money laundering, racketeering and fraud and is out of the game as far as a takeover is concerned. There was some talk yesterday of a Qatari consortium, headed by the former Leeds United chairman and dotcom millionaire Chris Akers, but nobody at Ibrox is taking it seriously.

That leaves Ellis and only Ellis.

"There's been all sorts of quotes and mischief in the public domain and I really don't want to make any comment until the time is right," he said last night. "I'm either going to say, 'Yes, we're doing something' or 'No, we're not'. It's still early days. All I can say is that we're working hard on what we're trying to do. If it works, great. If it doesn't, that's life. But I don't want to be pulled into any more spats that have been going on.

"I'm not putting any time-scale on it, because it's not fair. Different dates have been quoted and when they don't get met people get upset, so I'm saying nothing, I'm keeping very much in the background working on what we need to do. If it comes in, then fantastic. Wait and see."

There's still been no contact between Johnston and Ellis despite their public contretemps during the week. "I haven't spoken to Alastair, no. Was he premature in his assessment of what I'm doing? Yes, but all of a sudden I'm being drawn into a quote and I don't want to go there. Let's leave it at that. I didn't realise how many journalists there are up in Scotland. I'm probably getting about ten calls a day on this."

We asked why a sensible man would want to involve himself in a club that is heavily in debt, has a potentially calamitous tax bill on the way, has a chairman, chief executive and manager who are no fans of his and a set of supporters that doubt very much that he is the real deal. Ellis replied: "I'm sensible? Where did you get that one from? When there is something to report, it will be reported."