ABSOLUTELY irrelevant.

The phrase was used exactly 20 days ago and it seemed as strange and inexplicable then as it does today. At the unmoving centre of the maelstrom of issues surrounding Rangers' financial scandal is a matter which really should be pretty straightforward: who owns the club? Even those whose views on Craig Whyte verge on raw hatred tend to accept that he has a pretty sound claim to an 85.3% shareholding. That's what he got when he "bought" the club, even if he used the fans' money to get it rather than his own.

But then March 10 was the day when joint administrator Paul Clark took a crowbar to Whyte's supposed grip on the club. "We've seen no evidence whatsoever of any investment by Craig Whyte", said Clark. "We can't see how he can have any secured creditor status". "Make no mistake, Duff & Phelps are in charge of Rangers Football Club". "We're taking the decisions, not him". "In terms of Rangers' future, medium to long-term, he is absolutely irrelevant".

Clark is in the privileged position of having greater access to the paperwork than anyone else, so he ought to be speaking from a position of authority. His view of Whyte's position should be far more informed than most. But within financial circles, and the community of football insolvency experts, something jarred about that dismissive description. Nothing has been revealed in the three subsequent weeks to add credibility to the notion that Whyte will be so easily erased from the picture.

Yesterday it was reported that Duff & Phelps had been locked in talks with Whyte in a bid to force him to back down. It was said, too, that Paul Murray was contemplating withdrawing his Blue Knights consortium because it had been made clear that Whyte would never agree to the club being passed into their hands. "The administrators have told me they are prepared to take legal action to deal with this issue," said Murray. "As things stand, the Blue Knights cannot be successful."

So which is it? Paul Murray and the Blue Knights may be the most popular option among Rangers supporters, even more so given Brian Kennedy's apparent withdrawal from the running yesterday, but his comments seemed like an acceptance of inevitable failure under the status quo. Even if they were intended to put public pressure on Whyte by increasing the hostility towards him, that, too, would be a tacit acknowledgement of his importance. How can that possibly be reconciled with the dismissal of Whyte as "absolutely irrelevant", let alone Duff & Phelps claim that "we're taking the decisions, not him"?

The administrators told the media they did not recognise Whyte's hold on the club, they don't see how he can be a secured creditor when he didn't invest any of his own money, and they insist that he has no right to Ibrox or Murray Park. But Whyte contests each and every one of those points. Duff & Phelps may hint at mechanisms and financial manoeuvring which could crowbar Whyte out of Rangers whether he likes it or not, but there has been no evidence or clues about how they intend to do that, how long it would take, or whether their confidence is justified.

"In Rangers' case, Craig Whyte – in the press at least – has been quite bullish about saying he's not for walking away, he owns the shares and can't be removed," said Neil Patey, who has worked on football club takeovers and is a partner with the accountancy firm Ernst & Young. "On the face of it I'd say that is correct. The administrator doesn't have the power to sell shares that Craig Whyte owns. The administrators say they are confident they have a route by which they can sell the club. But it's not clear what that route is.

"Normally in a situation like this you would get compromise when the owner realises he can't bring the club forward, he doesn't have the money, he knows his equity isn't worth any money . . . normally the owner would compromise with the administrator to make his shares available to a new owner." Patey didn't need to finish the sentence . . . it's obvious that there isn't anything 'normal' about Whyte or this Rangers story.

If Whyte is determined to get all or part of what he believes he is owed by Rangers – and this is a man who has said "I am personally on the line for £27.5m in guarantees and cash" – then he is on a collision course with Duff & Phelps which could be resolved only by going to court. It would be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, for the administrators to expedite a takeover while there was a challenge to their right to sell. They can publicly dismiss his credentials as much as they like but Whyte has the right to use solicitors to defend his position every step of the way. If he is determined to dig in, the Rangers takeover would become damagingly bogged down in a saga of legal disputes.

"Saying Whyte was 'irrelevant' seemed a very strong thing to say when he is a major obstacle they have not yet overcome," said one insolvency expert with football experience. "I think you would have more confidence if Whyte came out publicly and said 'the club needs to move on, I'm willing to give up my shares and go for £1'. Until that happens, you have to be very sceptical.

"I would think it would be difficult for Whyte to come back to Glasgow. A reasonable man would say 'I can't come back to Rangers, I've been ruled not fit and proper, my equity's worth nothing, I'll just put my shares into the pot for free and, for a small pay-off, I'll walk'.

"But I struggle to see what mechanism they could have for getting the club out of his hands against his wishes. If someone owns shares, they own shares. I can't see any way other than by challenging how he got those shares in the first place. Even if the claim is that he got those shares by deceit then that would have to be proved in a court of law."

And no-one is irrelevant when they're sitting on the other side of a courtroom surrounded by expensive lawyers.