I think we are more than capable of handling our own demise 😞

Don't think any other clubs are interested in our demise including the franchise.

Is there any possibility that the scuppering of this deal may have been instigated from a malign influence outside of the fan base rather than from within - I only say this because we all know of one specific town where hatred of us runs in their veins….?

Administrators decide the new owners. Bond holders would be lucky to get anything and have no say in it either way. The bonds are unprotected. That’s why people like our financial director types might sell the club’s soul rather than go into administration.

Nick I agree with that - an outside investor (even Baron Mir) would be better to wait until the club goes into administration and then take full control rather than having to continually pay service to the DT. If we wished to find a good owner post administration the best thing we could do is go into administration with the bond holders being the main creditors as they would vote on any takeover and would generally have our interests at heart.

I must have read a different Sun article. I can't see anything in it about remaining fan owned at all costs. It does dramatically talk about the club now being in disarray and with £7.5m debts plus £2.4m annual losses and without this takeover the club will crumble. Are our finances really the worst of all ELF clubs? I'm more inclined to agree with SW19army and Mr Mir pulling out is due to AI stocks.

Nice to know it’s registered btw. Who was it who told you to post that?

If I were a potential investor in the club, my takeaway from this would be that there is a group within the fanbase who will stop at nothing to thwart any outside investment- therefore any approach involving co-operation with the DT and requiring fan approval is likely to fail, therefore the best strategy for the buyer would be to await administration and buy the club from the administrator who won’t need to waste time getting fan approval (and equally won’t have any interest in inserting conditions of sake involving the fans keeping control over the ground etc). The fan-owned brigade are doubtless feeling very pleased with themselves tonight, but I would imagine that this will prove to be the ultimate pyrrhic victory for them.

Trig, will you please desist from accusing the DTB of lying? Such accusations could lead to WUP's Closure. I don't have any confidence in the DTB but I don't believe that they're liars.

How has this not made the news? Like proper news not the clique network of WhatsApp groups and that weird discord thing where the new ESG Chair shares information before anywhere else.

I find it hard to argue with you Oxford. I find it inconceivable that somebody from our own fanbase seems to have gone to such lengths to stop the investment. With people like this as yet unknown person on our fanbase nobody will ever invest in our club. I believe there are a minority of fans that are so against investment of any kind they would rather we fell back into non league. I do not see outside investment as an ideal scenario. In an ideal world we would remain 100% fan owned and be totally self funding. But anyone who thinks like this is quite frankly living in cloud cuckoo land. We need investment to survive those are the facts and the fact there are people so petty as to seek to sabotage any investment I ask this question. Will you still think your actions are in our clubs best interests when we fall into administration or worse ? This person or persons may well be responsible for landing us in a place where we end up losing complete control of our clubs because administrators won’t give a damn about our desire to stay fan owned when they flog us on the cheap to whoever will pay. Not only will we no longer be fan owned our club and stadium will no longer belong to us.

Oxford Don that’s twice today you have summed things up so well

What rubbish news today. Is there a fee due to us for them pulling out?

That Sun article is indeed propaganda. The fact that one of the purists placed it (probably wrote half of it too - I know how this stuff works professionally) and got it up so quickly shows the lengths they've been going to behind the scenes to kill the deal. The article sounds so reasonable until you realise what it omits: the fact that Sheridans (our solicitor) said we asked them to do more due diligence on Omar Mir than they've ever seen from a football club, that Mir has several reputable roles (e.g. with the King's Trust) that would have required significant vetting and that nothing untoward was actually uncovered. The article actually reveals the truth in a number of places - this has nothing to do with Omar Mir but a desire from whoever is behind it for the club to remain fan owned at all costs. Again, the journalist (who presumably did no research of his own but was handed a story on a plate with the desired spin) fails to mention that staying fan owned will bankrupt us and that this wasn't a takeover but a way of retaining fan control with necessary investment.

Unless that journalist reads here or our Facebook page he must have been given that information about some questioning Mir

Can't see that doing much good for the bonds. Maybe need an even bigger loan.

Donial, yes, it does come across that way. For example, the sentence saying "It is precisely why thorough scrutiny and complete transparency must come before any takeover is signed off … or quite frankly contemplated in the first place" is more like a quote from someone than a statement by a journalist.

That Sun article reads like propaganda. Bizarre.

It may end up as a matter of “you reap what you sow” for those who have spent time and effort trying to block this deal, if the consequences are that we go into administration

I did wonder about that, Spit.

When we go into administration, let's hope Mike Ashley buys us out:-)

Surely he wouldn't be a mate padds,what with it being the sun ?

Timmy - you can add Ben Heneghan too, as he also played for Crawley today (came on as a sub at 1-0 and it was 2-0 soon after…). Mind you, I’d say yes to getting Jennings back…

Obviously Justin Allen is a buddy of Niall Couper, Spit.

TM does that matter, Jennings still better than Jacksons favourite non performers!