DISGRACED former Rangers owner Craig Whyte is in line for a £5 million payout from the liquidated funds of the old company which owned the club while the tax authorities, owed more than £90m, are unlikely to receive a penny.

Whyte has a binding agreement with the directors of the company acting for the one he used to take over Rangers. The Whyte vehicle, Wavetower, was the preferred creditor over Rangers assets, ahead of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and any others.

The liquidator BDO had resisted the claim on the grounds that he could not benefit through a criminal act. Court documents show that BDO had fought it because "the assignation agreement was part of a fraudulent scheme".

But as Whyte has been cleared legal experts maintain that his claim should now be met. If so he would receive £5m, or one-third of the total recovered funds of £15m.

If successful it would also mean that HMRC, having won the Big Tax Case after a seven-year battle to get millions owed from the use of Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs), could end up getting nothing from the liquidation.

The collapse of the The Rangers Football Club plc in 2012 left thousands of unsecured creditors out of pocket including more than 6000 loyal fans who bought £7.7m worth of debenture seats at Ibrox. Creditors ranged from giants such as Coca-Cola, to a picture framer in Bearsden and a lady called Susan Thomson who runs a face-painting business and was owed £40.

Court documents seen by the Sunday Herald confirm that BDO's rejection of the initial claim put forward by Wavetower was based on the businessman being guilty of fraud and financial assistance. With Whyte's innocence established and because of his agreement he effectively becomes ahead of the taxman and other ordinary unsecured creditors.

Wavetower inherited a security over assets including Ibrox and Murray Park from Lloyds Banking Group after paying off Rangers’ £18m debt using future season ticket sales. The security was originally set up in 1999 in favour of the Bank of Scotland, to hold a charge over its income and assets, because of Rangers' ballooning debt figure.

Whyte is no longer a director of Wavetower and the claim is now controlled by directors associated with Worthington plc, an investment firm, also once connected to the former Rangers owner.

However Worthington directors have previously confirmed that the company was obliged to pay Whyte £1m in unsecured convertible loan notes as a result of gaining rights to legal actions and one third of the proceeds of any claims – amounting to £5m.

One source close the claim said: "The recent not guilty verdicts [in relation to the Whyte case] would appear to leave the road open for a successful claim."

A judgement by Lord Doherty last year put off any decision on the rights and wrongs of the Whyte claim until after the fraud trial.

He said: "I am satisfied that (i) whether there was a fraudulent scheme involving [Wavetower], and (ii) whether [Wavetower] was the recipient of unlawful financial assistance.. are both issues which arise in the proceedings. In those circumstances hearing the appeal before the criminal proceedings have been concluded would trespass upon matters at issue before the High Court of Justiciary, with the risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in those proceedings."

Last month a jury cleared Whyte of all charges over his takeover in less that two hours.

The case revolved around Whyte's deal to sell off rights to three years of future season tickets to investment firm Ticketus in a bid to raise £24 million to fulfil his agreement with Murray over the purchase, secured by personal guarantees.

Just 10 days ago HMRC won a long-running legal battle over the use of Employee Benefit Trusts to pay players and staff at Rangers Football Club. Around £50m worth of payments, ostensibly loans, were made to dozens of players and employees through these EBTs from 2001.

In the Supreme Court HMRC won a binding judgement that the payments were taxable earnings and not loans, as contended by the club. Liquidators have previously confirmed that £72m of the £94.4m owed to HRMC relied on the taxman's claim that Rangers oldco was liable for its use of EBTs.