Pars United to take over Dunfermline next week

The process should be complete by next week. Picture: Toby Williams

Insolvency experts BDO are expected to formally hand over the day-to-day running of the club in the week following tomorrow’s home meeting with Ayr United as the contractual formalities of the change of ownership are completed.

The Fife outfit were plunged into administration in March in the face of a winding-up order by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over unpaid tax. Jim Jefferies’ team then suffered relegation to the new-look League One as a result of their 15-point deduction. However, Pars United, the umbrella group of individual fans’ and supporters’ organisations, were successful in receiving enough support from creditors to push through a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) at the end of July.

With the legalities of the hand-over formalised, Jefferies revealed yesterday that process should be complete after the weekend, allowing him more scope to look to the future.

He said: “The people at Pars United have been keeping us up to date and have told us that the changeover of ownership is to go ahead officially next week. By this time next week they should be in charge and, after Saturday, BDO will step aside, I think on certain conditions being met.

“With the new owners taking over, it will give us more of an ability to plan ahead, although there will still be the football debt to sort out. It will mean we can sit down now and plan. We’ve discovered a few issues with the football side that they will do their best to help with. We’ve just got to be sensible.”

The change of ownership will also allow Jefferies to pen a contract with the club after pledging his future to the Pars United group when they were announced as preferred bidders earlier in the year.

He added: “They approached me and we spoke about staying on. We looked at it and agreed in principle, provided everything was put in place. They couldn’t do anything officially but, once everything goes through next week, they will. I was happy to stay on and we’ll just sort it out when they get control.”

Meanwhile, Dunfermline have announced they have been allocated only 419 tickets for the trip to face Rangers at Ibrox on 12 October.