At time of writing it would appear that the interest of Mr. Andrew Ellis in buying Rangers is no more.

There are many reasons why anyone with the necessary millions would not want to buy the Scottish champions or indeed any SPL club at the moment.

Most of these reasons have been explored comprehensively in the Scottish media.

The league is very poor both in monetary and footballing terms.

The gene pool that produced Jim Baxter, Denis Law and Jimmy Johnstone now cannot produce players that would be of interest to major clubs in Europe’s top tier.

Darren Fletcher is in exalted company at Old Trafford for his work ethic rather than his flair.

Scottish clubs can’t rear players of real quality and certainly cannot afford to import the best from abroad.

Subsequently, there is no sustainable model for any club in Scotland that can put a team on the pitch capable of even a modicum of European respectability.

The people in charge at Celtic have been trying to think round that problem for several years by seeking out youth players in other parts of the world.

So far that strategy has yielded very limited returns.

The problems of little home grown talent and poor revenue streams remain for all SPL clubs. Anyone buying a Scottish club, even the champions would have to face up to these limited possibilities for success on and off the field.

There are, however, specific issues for Rangers.

One reason, perhaps, for the lack of serious bidders for Rangers (apart from the level of debt) is the people who follow the club.

The new owner of Rangers will not only buy a football club, but that person or company will also adopt some seriously delinquent people.

After the defeat by Kaunas in August 2008 the Rangers owner and then Chairman Sir David Murray admitted in several TV interviews that the scenes from the Manchester riots a few months earlier had made the job of finding a new owner for the club very difficult.

The scenes from Manchester were beamed around the world. Councillor Pat Karney, from Manchester City Council, said it was the “worst 24 hours in Manchester’s history”.

Millions saw the CCTV footage of Pc John Goodwin being pounced on by the thugs wearing Rangers tops.

Even the initial spinning in Scotland that  “these weren’t real Rangers supporters most of them were English” seemed strange coming from the “quintessentially British football club”.

Yesterday Cab driver Scott McSeveney, 21, denied assaulting Pc John Goodwin and violent disorder on May 14, 2008.

He was found guilty of both charges after a trial at Manchester crown court and will be sentenced later this year.

Prosecuting barrister Ricky Holland said McSeveney was among a ‘seething mass’ of Rangers fans that kicked and punched the police officer unconscious amid ‘appalling scenes’. The court was told that McSeveney, from Shotts, Lanarkshire, was part of a large group who “marauded their way down Newton Street in pursuit of retreating police officers”.

PC John Goodwin probably owes his survival to the fact that the pack of feral Rangers fans was unable to pull off his helmet. The police man, who continues to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is convinced that had the mob been able to get his helmet off then he could have been killed. PC John Goodwin was rescued by his police colleagues. He was lucky.

A year later Kevin McDaid in Coleraine, County Derry had neither PC Goodwin’s protective clothing nor the assistance of police officers as he was kicked to death by Rangers fans celebrating their league championship win.

Grahame Speirs wrote at the time of the Manchester riot that a “white underclass” had attached itself to the Ibrox club. His Pollyanna view of the Ibrox club is that Rangers are an essentially a decent outfit that have   recently attracted some unfortunate follow followers.

When the withdrawal of the Ellis bid was reported in the Scottish media Grahame Speirs conjectured on the Radio Clyde phone in that it was amazing that no one of substance had put in a bid for Rangers.

The one time Chief Sports writer with the Herald now with the London Times could not understand why a Fergus McCann equivalent had not emerged form the North American business community and rescued Rangers.

The conviction of Mr. McSeveney yesterday in Manchester and the inability of Rangers Football Club to find a suitable buyer are not, perhaps, unconnected.