Rangers are trying to sell the future again. New manager Derek McInnes is talking about standards, Andrew Cavenagh’s regime is attempting to harden the football department, and the summer window has been framed as the start of another cleaner, sharper Ibrox cycle.
Then the old case came back into view.
A reported memo from Lord Mulholland, covered by the Sunday Mail/Daily Record and followed by Scottish Legal News, has reopened one of the most bitter public arguments attached to Rangers’ 2012 collapse: the prosecution of former administrators David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, the later compensation settlements, and the promised inquiry that still hangs over the whole affair.
This is not a football department story in the narrow sense. It will not decide whether McInnes gets another centre-back, whether Rangers land a goalkeeper, or whether the first Europa League qualifier is handled with enough authority.
But it matters because Rangers are still trying to build credibility in the shadow of a decade that keeps refusing to stay buried. Every time the administration scandal returns to the front pages, it reminds supporters why institutional clarity matters as much as recruitment noise.
The Legal Story That Refuses To Stay In 2012
The immediate trigger is Lord Mulholland’s reported intervention. He was Lord Advocate when the prosecutions were brought and, according to the Sunday Mail’s account, has challenged the later decision to settle on the basis that the administrators were maliciously prosecuted.
The key names remain familiar to anyone who has followed Rangers’ post-2012 legal aftermath. Whitehouse and Clark, then of Duff & Phelps, were appointed administrators after the club’s financial collapse. They were later arrested, the charges were dropped, and compensation followed after the Crown Office accepted serious failings.
The public cost has been repeatedly reported at more than £50 million once wider settlements and legal costs are included. That is why the story has never been confined to Rangers supporters. It became a national accountability issue involving prosecutors, police, public money and political scrutiny.
Lord Mulholland’s position, as reported, is explosive because it cuts against the settlement narrative. Scottish Legal News reported that he maintained there had been sufficient basis for prosecution and questioned the reputational consequences of settling the case as malicious prosecution.
That does not rewrite the legal record by itself. The Crown Office position, previously set out after review, was that there had been serious departures from normal practice. But it does sharpen the central question: if Scotland’s prosecution service has accepted grave failure, why has the promised inquiry still not delivered a public, final account?
Why The Numbers Still Matter Around Ibrox
Football clubs live in the present because fixtures force them to. Supporters cannot spend every week litigating the ownership ruins of 2012 when McInnes has a squad to rebuild and Celtic remain the immediate domestic reference point.
Yet the numbers attached to the case still have force. A public bill north of £50 million is not background noise. It is the kind of figure that turns a club-specific scandal into a state-level failure of process.
For Rangers, the emotional charge is obvious. The administration period is not abstract history. It shaped how the club was discussed, governed, sold, punished, rebuilt and weaponised in public argument. It also shaped how many fans came to view institutions that were supposed to apply process with precision.
That is why the latest development carries more weight than a routine legal follow-up. It tells supporters the arguments around culpability, decision-making and public transparency remain unresolved at the highest level.
The club currently trading as Rangers is not being asked to answer for every legal question from that period. That distinction matters. But the brand, the fan base and the public conversation are still pulled back into the same gravity whenever the Crown Office, administrators, former executives and compensation figures return to the headlines.
In a summer where ReadRangers has already examined McInnes’ culture reset, including Alan Hutton’s warning over standards, this is the governance version of the same theme. Rangers cannot move like an elite club if the noise around the institution is never properly settled.
McInnes Is Building Forward Under An Old Shadow
McInnes has walked into Ibrox with football problems that are immediate and measurable. Rangers need a more reliable spine, better value from the transfer market, cleaner succession planning in goal, and a squad that can carry pressure rather than merely describe it.
The early work has been pointed. Lawrence Shankland gives him a domestic reference point. Ross McCrorie brings familiarity and competitive edge. Ben Godfrey adds top-level athleticism and experience. The wider recruitment plan is trying to make Rangers sturdier before the first serious European test arrives.
But every Rangers manager also inherits the job beneath the job. He must convince supporters that the club is no longer operating in cycles of reaction. He must make the place feel governed, not just busy.
That is where the legal story intersects with the football one. The administration fallout is not McInnes’ fault. It is not his dressing room. It is not his budget. Still, it forms part of the wider trust deficit around Rangers as an institution.
Supporters have been asked to buy into many resets since 2012. Some were commercial. Some were tactical. Some were managerial. Some were boardroom-led. The test for the current regime is whether this reset feels structurally different.
That requires more than new signings. It requires a football operation that looks serious, a board that communicates with discipline, and a club that does not leave supporters guessing when old questions resurface.
McInnes can control standards at Auchenhowie. Cavenagh and the wider leadership must control the institutional tone around him. Those two jobs are linked more closely than many clubs like to admit.
The Inquiry Clock Cannot Drift Forever
The Scottish Government’s own published FOI response last year stated that a process of inquiry into the Rangers malicious prosecution circumstances would be progressed once related investigations and proceedings concluded. It also said Shelagh McCall KC had been instructed to consider reports of criminal conduct relating to the prosecutions.
That position explains delay. It does not remove pressure.
When a case has produced enormous compensation, formal apology, disputed internal views and continuing public anger, process has to end somewhere visible. Otherwise every fresh leak, memo or political exchange becomes a substitute inquiry.
That is unhealthy for everyone: the individuals who say they were wronged, the public asked to absorb the cost, the prosecutors whose decisions remain under scrutiny, and Rangers supporters still seeing the club’s name dragged through an unresolved institutional fight.
The longer the inquiry remains theoretical, the more space there is for partial narratives. One side points to the Crown’s admissions and settlements. Another points to Lord Mulholland’s reported challenge. Political critics point to delay. Supporters point to the reputational damage that has never fully been reconciled.
That is not closure. It is managed drift.
The Verdict For Rangers Now
Rangers’ immediate priority is still football. McInnes will be judged by recruitment, performances, European progress and whether he can make Ibrox believe in a team again. That is the brutal simplicity of the job.
But the Mulholland memo matters because it lands at a moment when the club is trying to project renewal. A proper reset cannot only be measured by who signs before the next qualifier. It is also measured by whether the institution around the team feels stable, transparent and protected from old chaos.
The administration scandal belongs to a different Rangers era, but its consequences keep entering the current one. That is why this story still cuts through. It is not nostalgia. It is unfinished business.
For McInnes, the task is to build a team that gives supporters something immediate to trust. For the club’s leadership, the task is to make sure the wider Rangers story is no longer defined by unresolved institutional damage.
Until the promised inquiry finally arrives, the old shadows will keep finding the new dawn.
