Dunfermline: Delay expected over club’s future

Dunfermline’s administrator has revealed there will almost certainly be a delay in the pivotal vote to decide on whether the club has a future or not.

Dunfermline Administrator Bryan Jackson. Picture: SNS

Bryan Jackson, of BDO, had previously set a 12 July date for trying to agree a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) with the club’s creditors, who agreed ten days ago to consider bids for the ailing East End Park outfit.

However, with the original offers from the two interested parties – supporters’ body Pars United and a mystery consortium that has rejected approaches from Jackson to drop its request for anonymity – needing amended, the insolvency expert has confessed he is likely to have to push back that meeting.

One of the groups is expected to win preferred bidder status next week, a move that was expected earlier this week, and Jackson has admitted time is running out to meet the deadline for the key vote on whether the club can be brought out of administration. But the administrator, who is also trying to steer Hearts away from liquidation, remains hopeful a short delay will not lead to the club falling foul of the governing bodies if they do manage to get the 75 per cent support needed to get a CVA passed. He said: “Because of the revised offers both parties have submitted, I don’t think a preferred bidder will be named until early next week, so there is some slippage.

“The creditors meeting will probably now be in the week beginning 15 July as you have to give enough notice and send out the proposals. But the deal we have agreed with the SFL is that as long as the CVA is agreed in July, we won’t face sanctions.”

Jackson met with both interested parties earlier this week to iron out the conditions in their original bids that he described as “unacceptable”, with revised offers understood to have been lodged following the talks.