Charles Green's purchase of Rangers' assets included a payment to buy the contracts and registrations of the club's players, including that of new Saints signing Steven Davis, according to a report by the Glasgow side's administrators.

Duff and Phelps, appointed by the Court of Session on February 14, have broken down all the "asset realisations", the majority of which relate to their sale of the Ibrox club to Sevco Scotland Limited.

Green's consortium paid for the club's employees to transfer to his company under TUPE regulations, which protects employees' terms and conditions of employment when a business is transferred from one owner to another.

However, on the advice of their union, PFA Scotland, numerous players have rejected the opportunity to transfer their contracts from Rangers to Sevco.

That includes 27-year-old Davis, who last week agreed a three-year contract at St Mary's.

Green rejects the claim that Davis and the rest of the players are free agents and the former Sheffield United chief executive sent letters to clubs across the UK warning them that the players who objected to the switch to his new company were in breach of contract.

International clearance for the transfers of Davis, Kyle Lafferty, Jamie Ness, Steven Whittaker and Steven Naismith has been put on hold as Green continues to dispute the players' status.

Naismith has moved to Everton, Whittaker has signed for Norwich and Ness has joined Stoke.

While Davis is at Southampton, Lafferty is now with Swiss side Sion, and goalkeeper Allan McGregor is in talks with Turkish club Besiktas.

FIFA are likely to grant temporary registrations, while the wider issue is sorted out. The application for Davis was expected to be submitted to the world governing body yesterday, although there has been no official confirmation on that yet.