Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 11:22
Following a meeting with John Nelms attended by three Society directors on Monday of this week and a club board meeting on Tuesday, the Society board will meet tonight to continue discussions on the proposed takeover of Dundee FC.
Reports in today’s press quote Mr Nelms as being “very disappointing that I have not sat down with the Supporters’ Society,” and we feel it is important to set the record straight. John’s flight to Scotland was arranged not only at short notice, but before any of the consortium had even checked that club directors were available to meet him, let alone Society directors, and it was therefore impossible for our board as a collective to meet him on the only time and day offered (Monday). Three Society directors did make themselves available and did meet with him, but clearly it would have been preferable for him to have presented to all of us as representatives of the club’s majority shareholder.
Reports also claim that Mr Nelms met with representative of the Dundee Supporters’ Association (DSA), but as our members are surely aware, that organisation was dissolved in 2010 when the fans groups all got together under the umbrella of the Society. George Harris currently chairs the Society’s committee which looks after supporters’ clubs (known as the Dundee FC Supporters’ Clubs’ Association, or DFCSCA) but the meeting held with Mr Nelms was neither with that committee nor with the member clubs’ representatives.
We also noted press reports providing details of a stadium repurchase scheme, and while this has been discussed informally, no details or written plans have been provided to the Club or Society boards, and there actually seems to be more detail in the press than we have been given at this time.
Given our own history and that of other clubs recently, information provided to supporters and shareholders must of course include due diligence on the parties involved, and as of today we are not aware of any due diligence having been conducted. The club officials’ recent visit to Texas was, we understand, primarily to be a fact finding mission as a part