Fifty shifts of Whyte

People have made various claims about this Whyte interview and its setting. But the availability of seeing him respond – and in some cases squirm – under interrogation was revealing. This so-called "disgraced former Rangers owner" has an intrigue and brass neck about him which I find compelling.

I met Whyte on a number of occasions last year and at each juncture he grew more shifty and uneasy. Little wonder. He has now come clean about the worsening state of Rangers on his watch with every passing day, and with HMRC breathing down his neck to such an extent, you would have to have been a robot not to be affected by it.

But Whyte and the truth? Well, rather than cheapen the debate by using words like "shyster" and the rest, I can think of three specific areas in which he deliberately misled people.

First, Whyte made great play of the fact that he would put up much of his own personal wealth – with an add-on £5 million per year over five years – to regenerate Rangers. Indeed, in February of this year he was asked outright:

"You lodged £28m of your own money [for Rangers] as proof of funds?"

Whyte: "It was actually close to £33m."

"Your own money? From your own personal wealth?"

Whyte: "Yes."

Dear me, what tosh this was. If this claim was not a basic deception, then what is it? Whyte, whom some journalists and PR advisers repeatedly told us was "a billionaire", had no such private wealth to put into Rangers.

Second – and we need not labour this – was the Ticketus deal. There is no further dispute to be had over Whyte dissembling on the means of his Rangers takeover. The only squabble left to be resolved is whether Duff and Phelps knew much more about Ticketus than they let on – and Whyte and the administrators continue to make claim and counter-claim about that.

Third, it is also clear that Whyte misled Ally McCoist in terms of finance and player targets. I was there that morning in August 2011, when McCoist, having spoken with Whyte, told us that Rangers re-signing Carlos Cuellar from Aston Villa was a realistic possibility.

In truth, was Whyte actively chasing this deal on behalf of the club? Of course not.

Whyte told the BBC in midweek that Sir David Murray "was not duped" on the Rangers takeover. Well, what is clear is that Whyte certainly duped McCoist in terms of his ability to rebuild Rangers.

For me, these three clear and unequivocal deceptions make Whyte an unreliable character when it comes to the truth.

But Whyte, believe it or not, has got other things right. He calls the HMRC back-taxes claim on Rangers "ruinous" and I cannot think of a better description for it.

And, of course, this ruin upon the former Rangers FC was unwittingly imposed by Murray, not Whyte. So Whyte, to my mind, is quite right to make the claim that great damage was already done to Rangers prior to his arrival.

What perplexed me about the midweek fuss over Whyte was this great non-issue about whether it was Whyte or Imran Ahmad who first introduced prospective buyer, Charles Green, to Duff and Phelps.

Whyte claims he did the introduction. Intriguingly, Green, while vehemently denying it, also seemed to half-corroborate Whyte's story, at least in saying that it was Whyte who "introduced me to the administrator".

But what does it matter? Who cares about this aspect of the story? Amid the great Rangers self-destruction, what does it matter who stood over the first Green/Duff and Phelps handshake? Whyte, to a degree, will remain a mystery. But one thing is for sure: he made an utter mess of his strategy to "pull it off" in terms of re-emerging with a debt-free Rangers. That, to me, was a far more revealing admission on the BBC tape.

Nor will I ever get out of my mind the sight of Rangers fans lauding and fawning over Whyte as he walked into Ibrox on May 7, 2011, as the new Rangers owner.

If he had ridden on a donkey, and the fans had waved palm branches, it could scarcely have looked a more messianic scene.

I have to admit I've always been an admirer of Craig Levein. I like the bloke and I've often been impressed by the football manager. Which only makes it harder to admit that I can think of precious few reasons to keep Levein on as Scotland manager. I mean, what possible grounds are there for this?

Levein's competitive record with Scotland – played 12, won 3, drawn 4, lost 5 – is pretty dire. If Levein was a columnist or critic himself – heaven forbid – he'd be condemning this as rubbish.

Mark Wotte, Henry McLeish and anyone else can step forward and offer the old, lofty view that "it's not about changing the manager, it all goes much deeper than that". Yes, this is true to a degree.

But Levein, like any manager, has failed at key junctures. No-one is going to tell me this current Scotland team could not have beaten Serbia and Macedonia at home.

In the here and now, it would be perfectly reasonable to expect Levein's team to have six, maybe seven points in Group A, rather than just two.

Sometimes the scenario has to be depicted bluntly and to the point. Notwithstanding their time-honoured dithering, I think the SFA will have to axe their national coach. I also believe – absolutely – that Levein will come good again. There is no argument, he has talent.

In this chapter of his career, though, he has failed.