EX RANGERS PLAYER GORDON SMITH CLEANS UP WITH NEW BUSINESS

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Beverley Lyons 

FORMER SFA chief exec Gordon Smith and ex Celtic forward Jim Melrose are hoping to clean up with their new business idea - quite literally. 

The two former Manchester City players have teamed up to score in the disinfectant business and are even planning to approach the Scottish government with their plans to start selling their long lasting germ busting formula. 

 Gordon, a director at Rangers before it went into administration, who declared bankruptcy shortly after, believes their Bacoban product will revolutionise the way people sanitise products. 

Speaking at the launch of Falkirk’s Envisage Dentist surgery where he showed off his new product he said: “I’ve set up a company called Bacoban with Jim Melrose, a former teammate at Manchester City. We’ve been friends for years and he told he was getting a license for the uk for this German made product and I thought it looked very good. It’s really unique. Normally when you clean something it can become reinfected  in an hour but Bacoban lasts for a week to ten days which means you have security for that amount of time which  is fantastic.”

I think it’s going to take off. It’s not long on the market but it has all the licenses and certifications now. It kills most of the infections out there.”

The product which comes as spray or wipe can be used on door handles of toilets and public places and it’s also available as a smaller spray for shoes or football boots. 

Jim said: “You can’t buy it off the shelves yet. We have a lot of infections in this country and this kills all known infections and all the flu viruses. It’s ideal in certain environments like schools, hospitals, airports, transport and hotels. I believe it will be of major benefit to people in this country.” 

Gordon laughed: “The Germans are very good at creating things. You can trust their products and manufacturing and never ever come out with anything less than 100 per cent of what they say it is. The Germans were very good at football and still are. They win world cups and we don’t.” 

The two men are scouring the UK market for sales and hope to pitch it to government ministers in a few weeks. 

Gordon said: “The government should be looking at this. People tell us that the government looks at cures rather than prevention and that has been a problem and we are trying to get beyond that and say we really should be looking at prevention first. This will make a big impact to prevent major illnesses and infections coming into Scotland.

I’ll be speaking to the minister of health or education in weeks to come about this because I do want to get to a high level on it.”

Gordon added that it was difficult to change career paths after football and said he wouldn’t rule out going back into the game. 

He said: “I’ve not applied for the new SFA job but I never rule anything out. It’s hard when you give up the game and such a fantastic lifestyle. I’ve been an agent and assistant manager and always had plans to do coaching but it didn’t happen until I was out of the game for three years, working as a financial advisor. I’ve had a few offers since to be back in football as a coach and assistant manager of other clubs  even down in England and I haven’t taken them cause everything was going well with my business and what I had.”