Dundee United supremo Mike Martin has admitted the £1 million purchase of Gussie Park by his own pension fund could have been better explained to Arabs.
But he’s insisted the deal was done for the good of the club and ownership of the facility will be returned to United as soon as possible.
That the GA Arena, known to most fans as “The Gussie”, was being sold off was met with anger among supporters.
Martin, though, has stressed the deal was the best way of paying off some of the club’s debt and seeing them through to the end of the season.
“It’s actually a very simple transaction. We were looking at the funding requirements for the remainder of the season, we had a number of funding options on the table,” he said.
“One of the options was for me to do a transaction on the GA Arena and that’s what we decided to do. I was very keen to help and so that’s the route we took.
“I have no intention of being a long-term owner of the GA Arena. In fact, the sooner it’s back under club ownership the better.
“The simple arrangement is that I’ve acquired it, that put money into the club.
“That money was used for two purposes — one to pay down some of the loans that we had and secondly to provide working capital through to the end of the season.
“The objective is that as soon as the club is in a position to reacquire it, they will acquire it for the same price I paid. I make no financial benefit, the club makes no loss.
“I thought we had communicated that properly but clearly we didn’t. We maybe should have got our communication better at the time.”
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/fans-group-expresses-gussie-concerns/
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.
