Trust Chair Colin Cavanah and Trust member Richard Wild met with one of the investors on Tuesday afternoon following a meeting with the Club.
The investor shall remain nameless for now, whilst clearance from the EFL is awaited.
Amongst the things to come from the meeting and exchanged emails were:
- He has agreed to purchase over 40% of the shareholding in the Football Club subject to EFL approval
- He is currently awaiting EFL approval which could take three weeks or more
- The investor has given us a written assurance that Spotland or any other asset of the Club will never be used to guarantee any loans
- Assurances were given that there will be no return for any recently departed Directors
- He expressed his intention to take a back seat approach with the Club and to allow Chairman Simon Gauge and his fellow Directors to continue to run the Club in the manner that it is doing
- He has been impressed with the way Simon Gauge has stepped into his role as Chairman and has noted the extremely positive response from Dale supporters to the Chairman
- He will be attending matches in a more social sense, and wouldn’t anticipate sitting in the Boardroom
- Money will be invested into the First team wage budget
As part of our discussions with the investor, we expressed a number of concerns from Dale supporters regarding sustainability of the club, ownership of the ground and the horror stories that accompany the finances of lower football.
We certainly felt that the meeting went very well and we came away with a large number of positives from it. We have noted that this feeling is replicated from our discussions with the Club.
We will continue to engage the investors over the next few weeks, and keep supporters updated along the way.