TORQUAY UNITED SUPPORTERS TRUST

Alpine's posts are motivated purely by political ideology and nothing else. To his mind community ownership as promoted by TUST represents a left wing ideology of common shared ownership. Alpine is a free market ideologist in the mould of Thatcher and Ayn Rand who believes that only the rich and powerful should be able to own anything, that means he believes a football club for instance should only be owned by vested self interests.

TUST has been approached by representatives of the Chinese Group who have asked that the following information be shared with the fans forums.


Dear Sir,
This is to inform you that we on behalf of SL Organisation Ltd. feel strongly to bring to light our side of the story for the sake of the Torquay United FC fans after having seen the following statement made by one of the board members in your esteemed daily this afternoon."I have heard all the stories about other groups, including Chinese investors and others from overseas, but none of them were prepared to put up the sort of money which we needed and would show they could take the club forward.’’We were one of the companies facilitating the takeover of Torquay FC and find the club a buyer. One of our clients based in Hong Kong of Chinese origin was extremely interested to buy Torquay FC. Our clients were more than happy to pay all the debts including that of the current director’s and that owed to any other third parties involved. Our clients further pledged to put in more money as required to make sure that the club could run professionally and can become a sustainable entity on its own moving forward. Our clients were interested to see the football club progress to higher divisions and were more than happy to make the necessary investments in order to achieve the feat.We had submitted a LOI along with the proof of funds to the club on 07/12/16. We requested the letter to be counter signed and returned back to us which happened only on 12/12/2016 stating that the board members were not present in the office to do it earlier. Thereafter, we arranged a conference call with representative from the current board, member of staff from the club along with our clients to discuss further on the process of takeover on Wednesday (14/12/2016) afternoon at 1.30pm. The call lasted for more than an hour where detailed from both sides regarding the takeover along with future plans were discussed at length. During the course of the call it was learnt that a debtor to the club who had lent necessary funds during it’s time of despair and was part of another football club was calling the shots and answered most of the questions related to the club. The representative of the current board encouraged and at times relied on this individual to answer most of the questions which our clients enquired. Our clients were asked to inject a considerable amount of cash before or by Friday (16/12/16) to prove that they were serious to buy Torquay FC. Although the board took 5 days to return a signed document back to our clients they gave our clients only one and half days to arrange significant fund transfer to prove if they were seriously considering buying TUFC. Our clients accommodated this call at 10pm Hong Kong time to ensure that the relevant personnel from the TUFC could attend the call. It is clearly obvious that our clients were extremely serious in acquiring TUFC and had plans to come over in early January 2017 to meet with the club personnel.At the end of the call it was decided that our clients would sign a MOU with Torquay FC and requested to pen down a simple Heads of Terms before they could inject the necessary funds. We were informed that the Heads of Terms will only be ready on Friday (16/12/2016) as the necessary personnel required to complete the letter was not available before then. We waited all day until in the evening when we found that the club has been sold to a different company. We understand that the other party was ready to inject cash immediately while we needed further time to complete the process of takeover and inject cash into the club. Therefore, we wish the club and the supporters a very best of luck with their future endeavours. We felt it was necessary for the fans to know the truth which is the sole purpose of this letter.
Yours sincerely
Layla Jenkin

On the other issue, perhaps I can clarify that the statement signed in the name of Michael Goldbourne was agreed by the TUST board and was the official statement, not a personal statement. It was perhaps unfortunate that it was communicated in newsletter format which I think led to the confusion at the Herald Express. With hindsight it should have been in a press release format and circulated to different media.
Thank you to Petef and Alpine Joe for your kind words.

Very interesting Andy. I think it reflects the experience of TUST earlier in the year when they came to make a presentation and got Pete Masters and therefore rings true. Shocking really and God knows what the endgame is.....

They have sent the letter to DT as well but wanted TUST to circulate it on the forums. I think someone on one of the forums suggested they approached TUST.

If the process of GI acquiring TUFC, involved a degree of manipulation on the part of a machiavellian Peter Masters, then it does deserve further scrutiny. If the very existence/future of our club has been charted to suit one individual, then it is a scandal. We shouldn't just bury our heads and hope everything will be ok.

MONEY