Tag: Dee4Life

Chairman's Updates

Dee4Life members’ update

Dear Members,

The first item to cover is the fantastic achievement by Tony Docherty and the team in reaching top six status in our first season back in the Premiership. The club now have telling fixtures to try and secure European football again at Dens for the first time since 2003.

This success on the park is reflected in the nominations achieved by Tony Docherty up for the Manager of the Year award, Lyall Cameron for the Young Player of the Year award, and with Owen Beck named in the SPFL team of the year.

All fans will have noted the responses from the club to the questions about the new stadium development tabled recently, and the coverage across different media paths on this. Several Dee4Life members provided responses, to the Board, on the questions submitted and this is appreciated. Currently these are all being considered to establish whether we should seek any further updates or clarification on any points with the club.

Following on the recent and welcomed submission of the Planning Permission in Principle for the Camperdown stadium development, this has now been followed up by further announcements regarding a new training facility at Riverside, a new artificial pitch at the Gardyne Campus and works over the summer to address the drainage issues at Dens Park, with a significant level of investment for this announced.

These will be delivered through a combination of the Club, DBPH, and the Community Trust. All are welcome actions and, as delivered, reflective of the current positive path for the club on and off the field.

The announcement of e-ticketing for the new season is welcomed. This is something the Dee4Life board have pushed for previously as a benefit for fans and an assistance for matchdays where hopefully congestion at the ticket queues will be a thing of the past.

As a voice for Dundee fans, your membership is crucial. But did you know that you can also help Dee4Life by shopping online?

By adjusting your online shopping patterns slightly, you can help raise money for the Trust. Teaming up with easyfundraising, Dee4Life has already earned thousands of pounds thanks to members’ purchases online.

All you need to do is register for an easyfundraising account and select Dee4Life as the cause you’d like to raise money for.

Every time you shop online, easyfundraising will give a donation to the trust. This donation will help us to continue our work in providing a voice for Dees across the globe.

More information can be found here.

One area where there has been some discussion and reaction raised is to the 2024/25 season ticket prices notably the hefty hike in the under-12s price, from £1.00 to £50.00. These are the supporters of the future, and families may well struggle with this increase especially if there is more than one young supporter in the family. It is to be hoped that this does not backfire on the club and its ability to attract young fans for the future.

For your information there has been a change in the Dee4Life Board make up with Grant Hill standing down as Vice-Chair due to personal and professional commitments. Over the past two years, Grant has served the Trust very well, delivering and contributing on several fronts and bringing an energy and communications capacity that has been beneficial to the board and wider Trust membership. Our grateful thanks to Grant and all the best for the future.

So, finally, exciting times for the club and hopefully much more to come over the coming weeks, months, and seasons. But first and foremost, let’s focus on the exciting possibility of European qualification – see you at Dens on Saturday!

Regards
Keith Winter
Dee4Life Chair

Chairman's Updates

Members’ update: Club response to Camperdown questions and survey results

Dear members,

Thank you to all who attended our recent online meeting and contributed to discussion about the future direction of Dee4Life and our club. We welcome feedback on this event and would be happy to hold further meetings in this format if there is an appetite from members to do so.

As explained at the meeting, we received answers to the questions around the new stadium development that we had submitted to the club. Unfortunately, as these were received only an hour before the meeting, we did not have time to consider these as a board prior to the meeting but can now share this with you.

Click here to view the response on our website.

We thank the club for providing information that goes some way to addressing the concerns that members have shared with us over the past couple of years. We believe there is space for additional details to be provided on some of the matters raised and hope this can be addressed through further dialogue.

We would now like to invite members to share their feedback on the answers provided before sending a formal response.

Those wishing to submit their feedback should email contact@dee4life.com.

A desire for more information about Nou Campy was one of the standout findings from our recent members survey, which we shared with those in attendance. A breakdown of the results can also be seen on our website, along with our initial thoughts on the results.

Click here to see our members’ survey results.

What is clear from the survey responses is that Dee4Life members are committed and highly engaged Dundee FC supporters who make a significant financial and emotional contribution to the club. This is always at the forefront of our thinking.

Regards,

Keith Winter (Dee4Life Chair)

Chairman's Updates, society updates

Survey results: Dee4Life members contribute significantly to Dundee FC

In February the Dee4Life board sought to gain the views of members in a survey. Around a third of our members (171) took the time to share their opinion on the trust and what they would like us to focus on going forward.

We will take these views into consideration to help form our strategy.

Below is the list of questions we asked with the top-level results from each. Beneath each answer section is a summary of our thoughts on the responses.

Here are nine things Dee4Life could focus on, on your behalf. What THREE things do you think we should focus on most?

  • Working to ensure Dundee FC are here for the longer term (selected by 74% of respondents)
  • Bringing all Dundee-minded people together to support the club (51%)
  • Providing feedback to the club on off-field performance raised by members (38%)

Our overarching aim is to help ensure that Dundee is successful on the park and financially secure off it, which chimes with the most popular option selected by members. For us, providing feedback on the club’s operations and performances – and encouraging genuine engagement with as wide a section of the fanbase as possible – is vital if this goal is to be achieved.

Our door is always open to any Dundee-minded group or individual and we will meet with representatives of the club or any other fan group at any time and without any preconditions.

How much do you agree that there should be:

  • Fan representation on the club board (62% strongly agree, 29% slightly agree)
  • A Dundee FC AGM for shareholders (75%, 18%)
  • More regular feed of information about the off-field performance of the club (66%, 30%)
  • More regular feed of information about the current/new stadium (70%, 26%)
  • More regular Q&As with club representatives (64%, 28%)

Enhanced communication from the club is the clear priority of members. For almost a year we have been campaigning for the reintroduction of the club AGM and/or a meaningful Q&A with supporters’ representatives. We believe that this would address the information deficit around the stadium and other issues and enable the views of a wider cross section of fans’ views to be heard.

We will continue to push for engagement of this kind and note the answered to our stadium questions supplied earlier this week.

Do you believe Dee4Life are on the right track?

  • Strongly agree (46%)
  • Slightly agree (38%)
  • Disagree slightly (7%)
  • Disagree strongly (5%)
  • No opinion (4%)

It is important for all organisations to be self-reflective and responsive to feedback from members and other stakeholders. While we are pleased that 86% agreed that we were on the right track, we note that the number who strongly agreed was lower than for any other question.

Clearly a major factor in this is that relations between the club board and Dee4Life are not currently positive. We remain committed to rebuilding this relationship and our local MSPs have offered to broker a meeting between Dee4Life and the club board. In addition we have been in discussions with intermediaries about restarting relations. We hope they respond positively to these efforts and that this will enable us to seek the priorities outlined in your answers above.

Thinking about Dee4Life membership at £10 at year, which is most true of you?

  • I will definitely rejoin this year (81%)
  • I will probably rejoin (13%)
  • I may or may not rejoin (6%)

It is heartening that the vasty majority of you will either definitely or probably rejoin and we hope to win over both those who are currently unsure as well as to attract new members. We will look closely at all the reasons given, whether positive or less so, and this will feed into our approach over the next year.

Which of these things are true of you?

  • I have a season ticket (70%)
  • I go to most games (65%)
  • I buy food/drink from the outlets (26%)
  • I buy hospitality (25%)
  • I buy things from the club shop (71%)
  • I am an 1893 Foundation member (27%)
  • I am a Dee Lottery member (39%)
  • I buy half-time draw tickets (34%)
  • I am a DeeTV subscriber (23%)
  • I contribute to club raffles (30%)
  • I go to club events and dinners (26%)
  • I am a club sponsor/advertiser (3%)
  • I am a shareholder (24%)
  • I am a member of the DSA/a supporters’ club (36%)

Your answers demonstrate that Dee4Life members are passionate, loyal supporters of Dundee FC who contribute to the club in a variety of ways. Applying these figures across our entire membership, we can say with reasonable certainty that around 350 Dee4Life members are season ticket holders.

While the data does not allow us to ascertain exact spend, using fairly conservative assumptions we estimate the total financial contribution of Dee4Life members to the club each year to be in the excess of £200,000.

Who are our members?

  • Gender – male (94%), female (4%), other/prefer not to say (2%)
  • Age – 25-34 (5%), 35-44 (11%), 45-54 (12%), 55-64 (35%), 65-plus (35%), prefer not to say (2%)
  • From – DD postcode (62%), AB (8%), EH (7%), KY (5%), G (4%), Other Scottish (9%), Non-Scottish (5%)

Our typical member is a man, aged sixty, living in the Dundee area. Clearly for the future of Dee4Life we need to attract more younger members and increase the number of female members.

What is the best thing about being a Dundee FC fan?

Analysing your responses, three clear themes emerged – team (41% of mentions), identity (34%) and kin (19%). You have made it clear that Dundee is not just your team, it is part of your identity and that of your family.

There were also a few answers along the line of “I wish I knew”!

Chairman's Updates

Dee4Life members’ meeting – 18th March

Dear members,

I would like to kick off this month’s update by thanking all of you who responded to our recent survey. Your answers will help determine our future strategy and efforts to ensure that Dee4Life is as representative of the views of our members as possible.

My colleagues Andrew Pyke, Scott Lorimer and Ross Day have led on this project and are currently analysing the data before we consider your contributions as a board. We will then share the results widely, initially at the members’ meeting on Monday 18 March. As I said a few weeks ago, this meeting will take place on Microsoft Teams. This is in response to a request to occasionally hold meetings online to allow more members – particularly those who live outwith Dundee – to take part.

Members can join this meeting from 6.50pm for a 7pm start on Monday 18 March. An invitation will be sent out towards the end of next week.

We are aware that some of you may never have used Teams before so please get in touch with any concerns you may have. Please also let us know of any topics you would like us to cover during the meeting.

You can get in touch by emailing contact@dee4life.com.

We will send a reminder with a full agenda before the event but, in addition to sharing the survey results, we will also update you on our efforts since the Dee4Life AGM back in November. There will then be an open discussion, with members invited to share their thoughts based on what they’ve heard.

I am sure that the welcome progress evidenced in the submission of Planning Permission in principle for the Camperdown stadium development will feature heavily in discussions and I hope that we will be able to update you on the questions sent to the club via our Supporters Liaison Officer at this time.

I look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to this meeting and to hearing more about your views on both Dee4Life and the club.

Regards

Keith Winter
Dee4Life Chair

Chairman's Updates

Dee4Life members’ update

With the team performing better than we have seen in sometime, notwithstanding some poorer results recently, the new stadium proposals, with the Planning Permission in Principle application now submitted, and the recently announced partnership with Burnley, there is a lot of excitement around the Dundee support just now.

The Burnley link is particularly intriguing to me as I spent several years living in the Lancashire town. My wife and I still have friends down there, and I was last at Turf Moor earlier this season. It is a fantastic club from a great part of the world, and I hope that this partnership delivers for all parties.

The Dee4Life board is obviously delighted by the prospect of Dundee taking steps forward on and off the park but – as I outlined last month – the founding principes of the Trust mean we must always ask questions about developments, even those that appear exciting and potentially transformative.

With that in mind, we have submitted a series of questions (see below) relating to the stadium development. I hope that the club takes the time to consider these and provides answers that will go some way to addressing the concerns that members tell us they still have about the Camperdown plan.

At our November AGM we agreed to hold a follow up meeting in the first quarter of 2024, and I can confirm that this will take place on the evening of Monday 18 March. Following on from another suggestion, this will be online to allow a wider selection of members than usual to attend. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible then. Further details, including how members can join the meeting, will follow in our next update.

Ahead of that discussion, we want to gauge the views of members about how the Trust and the club and to find out a bit more about you and how we can best represent you. To this end, we have compiled a short survey which members will find in their email inbox. I would be most grateful if you could take a few minutes to fill in before the end of February.

Thanks for your time and I am hopeful February gives us more league points.

Regards
Keith Winter, Chair

Questions submitted to the Dundee FC board via club SLO John Burke:
1. When will the full planning application likely be submitted? Or any submissions required by the grant of the current PPIP under any attached conditions, notably suspensive conditions?

2. Is the target of football being played in the new stadium by summer 2025 still valid given the fact that planning permission in principle still has to be determined?

3. What are the phasing arrangements for the delivery of the elements contained in the development mix? Will the football facilities be included in the first phase or is the stadium contingent on the successful delivery of the other, revenue-generating elements?

4.Will Dundee FC own the stadium? If not, will the rental terms be set at a commercial rate or on other terms, such as a set percentage of the club’s turnover?

5. If the club is not to own the stadium, will the club pay more in rent than the current arrangements at Dens Park?

6. The ONS notes that private commercial construction costs have risen by around 30% in the past seven years, including approximately 14% since December 2021. Interest rates have risen significantly in this time too. How has all this impacted on the affordability of the project?
What protections are in place for the club should DBPH experience financial difficulties that prevent the project from being delivered, or the company to cease trading?

7. Records from the Land Registry suggest that both the Camperdown site and Dens Park have been used as security against loans obtained from the Soho Green finance company. Is this correct, what has this finance been used for and have the loans been repaid? What guarantees can be given that Dens Park will not be lost if repayments are not met?

8. Is finance in place for the new stadium development and is this in the form of investment or lending? If it is the latter, are the club liable for repayments of this?

9. Whilst the planning application process and subsequent development takes place what are the arrangements and investments planned for Dens Park?

10. In any delay on delivery of the Camperdown proposal what is the strategy and practical arrangement for the continuing use and operation of Dens Park over each of say 3, 5, 7-year periods or indeed indefinitely?

11. Should planning permission be refused or should the development fail to materialise for any other reason, what is the club’s Plan B position?

Chairman's Updates

Dee4Life members’ update – November

Dear members,

November saw the 2023 Dee4Life AGM take place and there was a decent attendance with the formal business of the Trust concluded satisfactorily.

In the Q&A session of the meeting several matters arose for discussion. A particular point was on a message conveyed to the meeting by a DSA postholder and Dee4Life member. The essence of this message is that Dee4Life is not currently seen as a supportive organisation by the club, that our directors are not welcome at Gardyne and that all future communications should be routed through the club’s Supporter liaison Officer.

I therefore wrote to John Nelms seeking clarity on the message delivered via a third party. In response I was informed that “the Club is not willing to support a relationship with Dee4Life at this time”, the club referred to our September and October updates in which we explained the mechanism for delivering the agreement that FPS made when they bought the club as well as summarising the recent meeting with our local MSPs.

We confirmed that we have not threatened legal action and indeed made it known to members at the AGM that we, as a board, would not support this action. In our most recent communication with the club we emphasised our commitment to resolving this situation amicably while noting that we are well within our rights to seek assistance from our elected representatives or any other intermediaries to build a means of communication with the club as its largest minority shareholder.

Over the past couple of months, we have purchased covers to prevent the long-standing issues with dirty seats in the South Enclosure as well as making an introduction that will hopefully lead to the Dundee Academy CIC establishing a new educational partnership. It is our intention to continue to support the club’s development and initiatives that improve the matchday experience for fans. In parallel to this, however, we believe that a mechanism for all supporters to be able to ask questions of the club board is vital.

Dee4Life exists because of the mistakes of the past and we have a responsibility to members to try and ensure the club custodians deliver a positive future. The current board may feel that oversight is unnecessary given the commitment and investment they have made but this is something they agreed to when they took over the club. The founding principles of the Trust mean that we must continue to ask questions on behalf of supporters. The Trust need to find a means to do this for our members and we continue to investigate how this may best achieve this.

Finally, following on from a suggestion made at the AGM, a further meeting will be held in March 2024. We will announce further details on this in the New Year.

All the best to all member and their families for the forthcoming festive period, a successful and prosperous 2024, not least on the pitch for Tony Docherty and the team.

Regards,
Keith Winter, Chair

society updates

AGM update and new board member appointed

Dear members,

I would like to thank all of you who came along to Saturday’s AGM and contributed to an impassioned discussion about the club we all love.

As a board, it is important for us to listen to our members and to have them shape our future direction. We are currently reflecting on all that was said at the AGM and will share our thinking, and any other developments, in our regular update at the end of the month.

I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce Andrew Pyke, our newest board member.

New Dee4Life board member Andrew Pyke
New Dee4Life board member Andrew Pyke

Andrew brings with him a wealth of experience in market research having worked for a number of multinational companies. His career includes nearly five years as Insight Manager at the Scottish Football Association. While there, Andrew set up the SFA’s first ever Insight function, established marketing planning, worked with UEFA to establish benchmark measures for football in Scotland and led Scotland’s EURO 2020 evaluation group.

More importantly, Andrew is a lifelong Dundee fanatic who is a season-ticket holder for the Bobby Cox Stand and a member of the Glasgow Dees, We are excited about the energy and ideas he will bring to Dee4Life.

Regards,

Keith Winter (Chair)

Chairman's Updates

Dee4Life update – October

Dear members,

I write this update still on a high from Saturday’s away win at Livingston and our ascent into the top half of the table. Whatever happens against Rangers tonight, I think we can all be happy with how Tony Docherty’s side have adapted to life back in the Premiership.

Last week, we met with Dundee City MSPs Joe FitzPatrick and Shona Robison to ask for their assistance in resolving the impasse we have reached in our attempts to have the club board address concerns raised by Dee4Life members.

In our discussion, Joe and Shona emphasised how vitally important Dundee FC is to the city and that they understand Dee4Life is seeking only to ensure that the future of the club is secure. They are sympathetic to our efforts to have boardroom representation restored and appreciate the importance of fans being able to ask challenging questions when appropriate.

Joe and Shona have asked to meet with us again once we have consulted with our members at this month’s AGM and we thank them for taking the time to meet with us and consider what they can do to help.

As you know, Dee4Life’s entitlement to two board places was agreed when FPS took over the club 10 years ago and is enshrined in Dundee’s Articles of Association. A lot has happened in the past decade so it may well be that what was negotiated back then might not be the best option for all parties now. As we made clear to Joe and Shona, if the club have an alternative model in mind then we are open to discussing it, noting that members will have the final say on any proposed changes.

The current board may feel the idea of oversight unnecessary and unfair given the financial stability that FPS have brought. We acknowledge this stability and would far prefer to be collaborating with them for the benefit of Dundee but, in line with our founding principles and with the agreement made 10 years ago, Dee4Life has a duty to ask difficult questions on behalf of fans, especially around the proposed new stadium development.

As we communicated with you a few weeks ago, we were pleased to hear that the club owners currently have no plans to sell Dens Park and groundshare, following Dark Blues Property Holdings’ purchase of our historic home. We believe the club owners are doing what they see as being in the best interests of the club, but there are still many unanswered questions about the stadium project that need to be addressed.

Also in October, Dee4Life Directors met with the committee of the Dundee Supporters’ Association and robust discussions about recent development took place. We believe it is healthy for open conversations to take place between all parties who have the best interests of Dundee FC at heart, and we will meet with the DSA again in January.  

As recent communications from the club have shown, the DSA does a fantastic job of providing them with assistance and, as a long-standing Invergowrie Dark Blue, I know first-hand the work done to represent member clubs.

There is significant overlap between Dee4Life and DSA membership and, while our respective constitutions mean there are differences in the issues we will raise with the club board, we all want a Dundee that is successful on the park and secure off it.

I hope to see as many of you as possible at the AGM on Saturday 11 November (start time 11am in Dundee Social Club) and hope you can encourage family and friends to join us before then so they too can help shape our future.

Best wishes,

Keith Winter, Dee4Life Chair

Chairman's Updates

Statement on purchase of Dens Park by DBPH

We welcome the announcement that Dundee’s owners currently have no plans to sell Dens Park and groundshare ahead of the new stadium development being completed.

We acknowledge the ongoing financial commitment of the club’s owners but also believe Dundee’s supporters deserve the fullest possible information about the risks as well as rewards of this project.

The fact that Dark Blue Property Holdings (DBPH) now own Dens Park and will own the proposed new stadium rather than the club itself raises questions about what happens to Dundee if DBPH is later sold. Other clubs have found themselves in dire straits in similar circumstances and we are keen to hear what measures are in place to protect the club.

We remain supportive of the Camperdown development in principle but once again call on the club’s owners to provide clarity about whether there is a plan B should the project not come to fruition, through no fault of their own.

Finally, we would like to thank John Bennett for the role he has played in ensuring that Dundee FC still exists.

Regards,
Keith Winter, Chair.

Chairman's Updates

Dee4Life update – September

Dear members,

When Dee4Life directors pledged to do everything in their power to seek answers about the proposed new stadium development, it was made clear that diplomacy would have to be exhausted before a different course of action would be pursued.

Over the past year, we have been guided by legal advice and have asked for nothing beyond what FPS agreed to when they bought the club 10 years ago. We have sought help from intermediaries and offered to go to arbitration to establish a framework for fan representation. We produced a proposal that highlighted the ways we can help the club in return for them fulfilling their legal obligations. We demonstrated our willingness to work alongside the club and provided financial assistance for projects. Most recently, we requested a Q&A session so that outstanding stadium issues could be addressed.

We have worked hard to find an amicable solution but, with the club still failing to answer the perfectly reasonable questions put to them, we feel now is the time to appraise you of all that has happened to date.

Board nomination

In December 2022, we nominated Trust director Kenny Valentine to sit as our primary representative on the club board. The response, signed ‘Dundee Football Club Limited’, made clear this was regarded as a hostile act. Much of the anger appeared to be linked to the fact that a Dee4Life director had, while acting in a personal capacity, responded to the Camperdown statutory consultation by noting that they opposed the plan as it was presented at that time. We had restated Dee4Life’s position – support for the development subject to assurances about the risks facing the club – in our official response to the same consultation.

We immediately sought legal counsel and were advised to resolve the situation privately. Our lawyer wrote to the club noting that the concerns expressed were clearly those of an individual, reminding them that we had acted within our entrenched rights, and offering to meet with company secretary Lindsay Darroch to discuss next steps.

While it would have made our lives easier to outline every detail with you, we were advised that any public fallout would jeopardise any chance of progress. We ultimately took the view that to go public would be to fail our members by making it less likely that they received the answers they sought.

While discussions were ongoing between lawyers, Kenny met with club GM Greg Fenton and received confirmation that Dundee would be playing at Dens Park the following season. This didn’t answer all our questions, but it did address fears that we would be groundsharing for 2022/23.

Over the months that followed, some progress was made. Despite the language used in their response back in December, the club had not said they wouldn’t agree to a Dee4Life rep on the club board and, at this stage, the direction of travel seemed to be towards this happening.

Frustrated progress

Kenny and I (Dee4Life Chair Keith Winter) held robust and constructive discussions with John Nelms, emphasising why increased engagement was positive while pushing back firmly but professionally where appropriate.

An example of this came when we launched a survey in response to the club’s season ticket launch. Two hundred of you took the time to complete the survey and to ask other questions. Despite having agreed to provide answers to FAQs, the club then said they would prefer to answer them on the club’s channels so that all fans could be addressed simultaneously. We still await these answers.

By this time, we had finalised a formal proposal outlining how we saw a relationship between the club and the Trust working and this was sent to Dundee directors once the season ended. We called for several measures intended to increase engagement and communication, along the lines outlined in the club’s own Customer Charter. There were also examples of the ways in which we could help the club as part of a mutually respectful partnership.

While there was agreement in some areas – including willingness to take part in a Q&A – there was significant disagreement in others. Whereas discussion on the board place were of the ‘when, not if’ variety a few months ago, there now appeared to be a hardening of the club’s position. This culminated in us being told that attempts to have a Dee4Life rep appointed would continue to be resisted.

Q&A request

Over the past year, we have made clear that we sought a reset in relations with the club but the supposed actions of “individuals associated with Dee4Life” were repeatedly cited as reasons for the club’s reluctance to engage. With no movement on the board place we requested the Q&A that John Nelms had indicated he was willing to take part in. The response we received offered only a further meeting rather than direct discussions about the issues we had raised. We had previously been offered a Q&A with Tony Docherty but it would have been inappropriate to take part in this while we seek answers to the Camperdown questions.

It has been frustrating not to be able to share all we have been doing with members, but it was necessary that discussions remained confidential while there was a chance of diplomacy succeeding. We also had to be able to evidence the steps we had taken to resolve the impasse in a professional and amicable manner. Our aim was to be above reproach in all that we did.

Next steps

For obvious reasons it isn’t in our interests for the full legal advice we received to be in the public domain but, to summarise, the only way to enforce Dee4Life’s entrenched rights would be by raising legal action against the club. We don’t have inexhaustible funds but the majority of our reserves are ringfenced for legal action if it is ever required to fight a very clear threat to Dundee’s existence.

Our primary focus over the past year has been to fulfil the pledges we made at the last AGM and for fans to receive the information they deserve. The board rep nomination was a means to an end for us – that end being to get answers to the stadium questions and to ensure this kind of situation does not arise again. With club directors now explicitly saying they will block this move and with John Nelms now apparently unwilling to take part in a Q&A, it is now time to consider next steps.

We will be meeting with Dundee’s two constituency MSPs over the next few weeks to ask for their assistance in resolving this situation. We will update you on these talks and anticipate laying out the options available to us and recommending a course of action ahead at our AGM in November, at which point members will be able to vote on the direction we take.

We note today’s media reports about the imminent purchase of Dens Park by FPS and will consider the implications for the club as we obtain more information on the matter.

Keith Winter (Chair)