Rangers in administration: Walter Smith gives backing to Paul Murray and Blue Knights Murray has already said that there would be a place for Smith, possibly in a consultancy capacity, should his bid prevail. "If there is anything I can do to help the club I will do it but I'm not going to come back [on a full-time basis]," he said. If I had wanted to stay at Rangers in a working basis I would have done so. But if my experience can help anyone then I will. However, he ruled out a return as director of football. "I couldn't sit in judgment on another manager, especially the one who is here just now," he said. Whoever eventually takes the reins at Ibrox, Smith believes that they could take several years before they are once again in a position to challenge again for the title he won for a third successive season last year. "They will have a difficult period," he said. If there is investment in the team you still have to get them to gel together but the level of investment that is necessary might have to be spread over a few seasons to get the playing staff back up to a standard. I don't think there is any doubt that [recovery] will take a period of time. Just how long I don't know. It will obviously depend on the level of investment the new owners can put in the team. Smith also dismissed former Rangers striker Mark Hateley's claim that Celtic's championship success this season will be "tainted" because Rangers suffered a 10-point deduction as a result of entering administration, pointing out that the majority of Hateley's medals were won during an era when their Old Firm rivals were financially crippled. "The points penalty has affected them but it's like everything else," he said. When I first took over at Rangers in the early 90s, Celtic were in a poor position financially and organisationally. Rangers managed to win a couple of championships then. You count them. When you win a league championship, it's not just a test of the team that goes on the field. It is a test of your whole club, the organisation and the way it is being run. Rangers haven't been good enough in that aspect. There is no doubt the circumstances they have been in have affected the team on the pitch but you have to look at the club overall. The team that wins the league championship deserves to win it. What Smith struggles to come to terms with is how a club which was debt-free last summer could be, quite deliberately, plunged into administration by discredited owner Craig Whyte. Like most laymen, he also can't grasp that that isn't illegal. "Rangers weren't a business going into administration or anything like that, they were actually a business which was fairly well run over that period of time," he said. How many businesses can take £16 million off their debt in three years during a period of recession? Yet that's what happened. The previous people ran the club in a manner they thought was best. They were successful enough on the field and we were meeting the bank's criteria over those three years, albeit under protest on my part. Smith will manage a Rangers Legends side including Michael Laudrup and Lorenzo Amoruso against Franco Baresi's AC Milan in a fund-raising match tonight.