The Ghost

1. I'm not sure the relevance. This isn't about a slur on the candidates - it's a slur you made towards the entire previous TJF board. The date doesn't matter. 2. You stated it as your speculation and you've been corrected by two former members of TJF's board. You've still not apologised. 3. Fantastic, I'd love to hear your latest speculation. For what it's worth, my intentions were that whether I agree with everything that the previous TJF board did or not, they are all Thistle fans who were trying to do the right thing by the support. They have been insulted by 3BC (not fit and proper) and don't deserve to be subject of false speculation by candidates for the new Board. If you'd just held your hands up and apologised when Tom corrected you then I wouldn't have bothered. That was my intention. There's still time for you to do that. TJF's board needs to be accountable and subject to scrutiny from the fans (as does the club's) so if you don't like being called out on making false speculation then don't make false speculation. Finally, I'd just like to thank the hundreds of messages of support and bewilderment I've had from people regarding this exchange. It's wrong to single folk out but special mention to David Hasselhoff, the people of Metz, Peter Andre and two of the Beach Boys

There's a lot to unpack here. Thanks for clarifying that despite making corrected (by both Tom and jaf) claims about the conduct and approach of the previous TJF Board, you're standing by them. I'm not standing for TJF and never have, but I am supporting the Jags for Change candidates. I'm open to supporting any candidates. The reason I took your bait is that you made incorrect and unfair claims about the previous TJF Board. I don't agree with everything that the board did (and I don't know anything of the inner workings), but I know that their approach was not to bin the current board and was not confrontational. "you have got me down as spending all my time wildly speculation (sic)." No I didn't. I said that you were doing that whilst in an election campaign. And you are. Finally, in terms of your point about why JL walked away from the process, none of us know. The Jags for Change letters were primarily focused on the fact that 3BC and the club have not provided clarity on what their criteria are to deliver fan ownership, nor their honest reasons for pulling the plug on the process. In terms of an "inner circle", the answers need to come from 3BC and the club. Attempting to divert blame for this morass towards the previous TJF Board or any individual or group of fans would be mistaken in my opinion.

I think the phrase you were grasping for there was "I apologise unreservedly for falsely accusing the entire previous TJF Board of a confrontational stance with absolutely no basis or backup". Are you standing for TJF Board erty? If so, it's an interesting strategy to spend that campaign period wildly and incorrectly speculating at the conduct and viewpoints of previous TJF board-members.

The Thistle fans fund the club year after year. Fans with limited resources spend their own spare cash to support the team, in good times and bad. The fans are the heartbeat of every football club and matter more than any individual. For the past two years, the club board has treated the fans with contempt. I'm astonished at the apologists that seem to think that TJF or the fans need to build bridges or to go on bended knee to 3BC or the club board. The fans nor TJF pulled the plug on this process. The people who need to build bridges and demonstrate greater willingness to work together are currently hiding in the firhill boardroom, in the midst of the longest sponsored silence in scottish football history.

Yes but it is the role of the shareholders to appoint the Board of Directors. Depending on the priorities that arise for the club, that will have an impact on the skills that the shareholders would want on the Board to address issues such as finances, property projects etc. For example, given the dreadful communication from the club lately, it would be great to have an experienced PR professional on there to help improve that.

Where did I do that? See, you're at it again! The process stalled because of JL's interference and was then halted because of her temper. Lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with it at this stage.

I don't that's the majority view at all. I think the majority view is that if the custodian of the club who hasn't put a penny of her own money in refuses the will (and professionalism of the supporters federation) then the current club board either need to outvote her or brace themselves for a real change in approach from the fans. It's quite something to see the intellectual gymnastics you're performing at every stage to project issues onto the fans when the problems here, the reason this hasn't happened, is sitting in the Thistle boardroom.

I think the last sentence is cutely worded but you're smart enough to know that those views of TJF came from opposite ends of the spectrum. Criticism from fans here and elsewhere was that TJF wasn't being brave enough and demanding some clarity on finances from the club, approaching the transaction professionally and ensuring that the directors of TJF fulfilled their fiduciary duty to its members. JL wanted to dictate terms to TJF and rejected even the most basic financial interrogation. When TJF finally, meekly raised its hand to ask questions, she pulled the plug and did so publicly in a ridiculous statement that writ large the conflict of interest she has had from the start of this. The reality is this, the members of TJF and the wider support contribute far more to PTFC than JL ever has. This isn't her personal investment where she has earned the right to set terms, she is a custodian and yet she's treating the fans with contempt. She's made lots of mistakes at Firhill but the conduct of the past week is irrecoverable for her.

She's certainly preventing a professional approach to this process by denying due diligence. We can only speculate as to why but in a scenario where the shares are being transferred for no consideration, then due diligence would be far more important to the "seller" as it gives independent evidence that all is how it should be. It seems very odd that she is refusing to allow it. It seems very odd that any Thistle fan continues to defend that position too.

It's important in a journey like a move towards fan ownership that people are open-minded and willing to change their position rather than become entrenched. It's impressive to see javeajag making the case for professional independent due diligence here despite arguing against it for so long and doing so in such a concise way. Two serious observations - firstly, if any individual at the club has been pushing TJF back and dictating to the fans as to how the process of transition to fan ownership works, it's long overdue that they are outed and questions asked as to their conduct and motivation. Secondly, if you're still on TJF's Board and you're allowing fan ownership to fall apart because you don't have the guts to make a public stand against individuals dictating terms, then you're going to have to accept responsibility for this failing.

Why are some people so fearful of professional due diligence? It seems bizarre that something that would be done in any transaction is an apparent major issue here. In terms of Directors having access to all the detail, firstly they might and they might not. As I understand it, the Chair of TJF who is also on the PTFC Board now (*conflict of interest klaxon*) is not a financial professional and may not have the expertise to ask the right questions and interrogate the financial position. Overall, it just seems remarkable to me that the PTFC Board and its acolytes are so desperate to avoid a professional process that assures the fans of what they are taking on. Due Diligence protects the seller as well as the buyer in a transaction and I would have thought that in this case, if I were handing over stewardship of the club to the fans, I would want that to happen so that I can demonstrate that the club is being handed over in good health. The trouble is, there seems to be certain individuals who are forcefully against professional due diligence without any explanation as to why. The result is that we can only speculate on their reasons.

Also be good to know which third party firm is doing the due diligence, and an explanation for why it's not a conflict of interest to have the Chair of the Foundation on the Board of the club prior to completion of the due diligence and share transfer.

Amidst all the anger at this whole situation, my constant trouble has been that there are a bunch of things that are demonstrably true and frequently pull in opposite directions: 1. This situation is unfair. We all signed up to play the season and it's unfair to be relegated with games left to play 2. It would be equally unfair for teams who were in position to win their leagues to be denied promotion 3. This is a global pandemic and people are losing their lives so football isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things 4. The SPFL was a shambles from a governance perspective in organising the vote to provisionally end the season 5. The SPFL was managing a complex mix of commercial contracts with sponsors and had the added pain of this summer being a changeover in their broadcaster contracts which limited its options. Basically, Doncaster and co had a really difficult job in the midst of unprecedented uncertainty 6. What is now clear is that there is no way that we could have finished the 19/20 season so the choice was to annul the season (with a host of commercial contract implications) or to call the season early with the unfairness that brought to us) 7. Every club in the SPFL voted out of self-interest. Including us. If we had beaten QOTS at Firhill that night and sat a point above them, we would've voted to end the season early. Throughout this whole saga, the best outcome for the relegated clubs was going to be to tell the story in the media and take the moral highground. History tells us that we weren't going to find holes in the rules and our best bet was to publicly shame the rest of Scottish football into offering some cash as additional compensation. Instead, we embarked on a legal case which, while we rightly decried the unfairness of the situation, proposed that the promoted teams shouldn't be promoted which would be similarly unfair. We can't possibly claim to be anything other than just as driven by self-interest as everyone else at that point. We have compounded errors for 18 months at Firhill. This summer, we took the wrong path in challenging the SPFL vote, we chose the wrong partners to do it with, we took the wrong tone in almost every statement we made. Now, we should take some time to be silent and let the dust settle on this and get ready to be a better football team in League One both on and off the park. It's not fair but sometimes you have to accept that all the club has done for the past weeks is make the outcome worse.