South Somerset District Council blamed for the failures of two different takeovers of Yeovil Town Football Club.

This year, two separate takeover bids of FA Cup giant killers Yeovil Town have failed to finalise.

The first takeover offer from Julian Jenkins, fronting Simul Sports, was backed heavily by multi-millionaires prepared to invest heavily into the club and return the flagging club to its former glory.

Plans were set to build a new football academy for the town to feed the club with talented players and bring to the club league players with experience and an established league manager.

Those plans were wiped out when the local council stepped in and bought the land and stadium from the club for 2.8 million pounds in return for the club becoming a tenant, paying the council rent, and offering the club the exclusive buyback rights.

After that, Simul Sports revised its offer but were requested to wait until the end of August, something the group weren’t prepared to do and felt they were not to be the ‘back stop’ for current owner Scott Priestnall.

Thereafter later in the year, as reported by Global247news, successful local entrepreneur and multi-millionaire Martin Hellier attempted to salvage the club’s fortunes and once again wished to put football and the community first; Hellier last week felt he had no option but to pull out of his offer, citing on Twitter lack of information from the current owners.

It’s understood Hellier had contacted super agent Steve Day to bring to the club a wealth of experience from the football league in terms of players as well as former player Kevin Cooper to set up an academy at the club, with Cooper prepared to return from Malaysia where Vincent Tan, the owner of Cardiff City, currently employs him.

Now Yeovil Town fans are waiting for a ‘worts and tell all’ promised by disappointed Hellier as the club, despite being in financial strife, appeared to ignore the offer from the Yeovil entrepreneur, Hellier.

Vocal Hellier recently stated on social media that he’s to reveal all to the fans group Gloverscast in an exclusive fan interview.

Julian Jenkins had wished Hellier all the best in attempting to purchase the club whilst telling Global247news buying Yeovil Town from its current owners is like ‘Trying to herd cats.

Jenkins, in the main, remains quiet on the sore subject of attempting to buy Yeovil Town Football after thousands were wasted in legal fees with lawyers before the council loan offer was accepted by Scott Priestnall.

Now Day, speaking from his Gibraltar-based offices to Global247news, appeared to blame the council for the failure of both takeover bids; he told us:

” I’m gutted for both parties and all the fans of Yeovil Town Football Club; both had all the right intentions, football, with them, any developments on the land would have seen the funding and revenues go into the football club.

“I don’t see that with the current owners; in my opinion, they are not there for footballing reasons.

” In my opinion, once the council offered their bailout and parted with 2.8 million, no takeover was going to go through, and the intention now, in my opinion, is to run the club on a shoestring budget until they find a developer prepared to pay a value for the ‘buy-back rights’ and the club.”

Day, who has been involved in various football takeover deals over the years, working alongside the likes of David Sullivan and Sam Hammam as well as others, went on to add:

” The council, I feel got hoodwinked; they thought they were saving the club when in fact, the owner of the club used a majority of the funds to pay off a loan to buy the club in the first instance! – how’s that benefiting to the club at all? In reality, the current owner got the club for free, with funds left over, and on top of that, it’s never been revealed how much he actually parted with from that loan to buy the club from the previous owner; I doubt it was the same figure as the loan if it wasn’t where did the funds go? Accounts don’t show from what I’ve seen of the money going into the club; I hear Preistnall is now in Turkey developing; supporters groups should question how he’s funded that? Looking at Companies House records of his previous companies, I can’t see a trail, but maybe he could explain to the club’s fans?

” It’s all such a shame for the Yeovil and surrounding areas community, both of the interested takeover parties, were in it for football and community reasons and had grand plans.

“To see the way it’s going at Yeovil and a club I watched with my late dad as a child, it’s sickening to the stomach, the way it’s going, to be honest, and quite frankly unless a takeover is accepted from ‘football people and not developers – it could be the end for the club as fans have known it over many years.”

We asked Day if he thought there was anyway ahead for any party or the fans of the club, and he replied:

” I was brought up on the likes of Dickie Plumb and Stuart Housley; it would be great to see fans’ unity back at the club as it was back then; now, due to all the club’s issues and understandably, the fans are split into fractions, I thought my days in Formula One were terrible with all the politics but at present Yeovil Town is worse, albeit it’s understandable with the bad owners of late.

” In my opinion, there’s only one sad way to go now; the fans need to unite and starve the current owner to get shot of them.

” Fans should stop buying anything, including matchday tickets or any merchandise; they should only go to away games until this board has gone; it’s not a wealthy board; they won’t raise funding; that’s now the only way I see of getting rid of them, starve them out and allow someone to step in and pick up the pieces, someone like Martin Hellier, it’s not a cash-rich club, without fans funding, they are snookered. The trouble is football club owners like Yeovil Town’s thrive off fans’ blind loyalty to the club; without that, the current board will be away quicker than Ben Johnson from a drugs test,” he quipped!

Only time will tell now if the fans of Yeovil Town will step forward to take action. However, fan Gary told Global247news, ” I can’t see our fans do that if I’m honest, too many are burying their heads in the sand; I’ve stopped going, and I don’t see a future for the club at all whilst Preistnall is there, well apart from possibly playing at Mudford Rec!

“We lost two good takeovers, and Preistnall should be run out of town.”