Billy Davies has blamed his three-and-a-half year spell out of work on “lies and smears”, alleging there has been a deliberate and orchestrated campaign to sabotage him, and claiming 17 different clubs in England and Scotland have been specifically warned to steer clear of him.

Davies, unemployed since being sacked by Nottingham Forest in March 2014, said he was fighting back against a “smear campaign” to clear his name after what he claims is a witch-hunt led by a PR company he refused to reveal.

“I love football, I miss football,” Davies said in an interview with The Times. “It is in my blood. But three years ago I spoke with a very respected legal individual, who, back at the beginning of all this, told me categorically: ‘Billy, you cannot go back into football until you clear this up.’ I have gone through various QCs, Scottish and English law firms, the League Managers Association, HMRC and more, chasing all the data I needed to show I was an innocent man. It has taken me a long, long time but I have now got that data.”

Asked to specify who exactly he meant, Davies said a PR campaign had maliciously targeted the clubs that might ordinarily want to employ him. “What they decided to do in their smearing is identify the bottom six EPL clubs, and some English Championship clubs that they know I would go to. They’ve sat down and identified these clubs. Plus, throw in the only club in Scotland – Glasgow Rangers – they identified them as well. Just look at the comments on these forums from certain people, during the process when Rangers were starting to pick a new manager. You can see it clearly.

Davies, who formerly managed Derby County and Preston North End, insisted he would come out on top and return to the game at a high level. “I know where I belong in the game, I know where I should be managing. No smear campaign, lies, maliciousness – whatever you want to call it – is going to drive me down to a lower level of football.

“A smear campaign has driven me away. For whatever reason, they have decided to take away from me something that I love. They have put my career on pause. But I’ll be back soon. I don’t think there is any doubt that one day I will be back at the top of football.”