Colin McMenamin rages at Bob Brannan and Calum Melville for 'playing with people's lives'

He turned his anger on the pair for not showing up at Dens while administrator Bryan Jackson clears up their mess. He said: "They have been playing with people's lives, it's shocking. The people who are at fault are not actually here. I had a good relationship with the chairman but I found out this morning that he resigned last night.

"I would have liked him to have been here. Even if it's just to say he's sorry about what happened, but he's hiding."

He added: "People are entitled to do what they want with their money but they've played stupid games with people's lives. They signed players as recently as five weeks ago and now they have been laid off. You can't tell me they didn't know this was coming five weeks ago.

"If people want to come into football they should be made to show there is a plan behind it instead of a fairytale.

"Before anything is invested they should be made to prove the money is there. A lot of people have not been told the truth here.

"I've been through this before and this one has been the worst."

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McMenamin, who was with Gretna when they hit trouble, felt the players and fans have been kept in the dark throughout the weeks leading up to administration. He added: "It is a lot more serious than they have been letting on. Even at Gretna when all the rubbish was happening we were told what was going on. What has happened here has been nothing short of disgraceful. The wages we didn't get paid are lost now. We are creditors of the club like everyone else. We got told they only paid us half to keep the taxman at bay but who knows if that's the truth?"

Brannan released a statement late on Thursday night, announcing "with great sadness" that he is standing down as a director, and offering his 54 per cent shareholding to the club's administrator.

"Dundee FC was brought back from the brink of extinction (in 2003]," said Brannan's statement. "It breaks my heart to see its future threatened once again.

"The change of strategy adopted in 2009 has clearly failed. Calum Melville initially invested heavily with a view to achieving rapid promotion back to the SPL. He committed to funding the club through to the end of season 2010/11. However, anticipated revenues from operating activities have failed to materialise, the funding gap has grown and Calum's own personal circumstances have changed.

"It is my desire that the club be owned by the fans.Consequently, the 54 per cent of shares controlled by me will be made available to the administrator so that he can utilise these for fundraising purposes.

"It is important fans understand that prior to Calum coming, the club was operating with an annualised deficit of over 300,000 and the only real option available was part-time football.

"Dundee FC is blessed with wonderfully committed fans but the big question is, are there enough of them? It is extremely challenging to operate a club like Dundee in the SFL, and it will require much greater support than ever before to do so on a breakeven basis.

"We never missed a beat with wages in over 70 attempts and HMRC only really fell behind earlier this year and, as has been made public, Calum offered to personally guarantee this.

"I understand the frustrations of management, players, staff and creditors finding themselves in the current circumstances and for that I am desperately sorry. All contracts were entered into on the basis of this support, in good faith. I will continue to support the club in every way I can."