No, that can’t be done, at least not in a practical way. Confidentiality agreements would have to be struck with anyone wishing to review the transaction and due diligence documents, and even then the documents would have to be kept under tight wraps – probably by having members come and visit a data room where documents are kept, but not by sending out copies or making them available electronically. Far too much risk of leakage.

Agreements will likely become somewhat more widely available to members (under confidentiality restrictions) once the sale actually closes.

As a MyFC member, I read through the proposal once and then voted Yes immediately.

I’m not a lawyer nor an accountant, so if they said that after due diligence, this was the best deal we could get, then I take their word for it.

Existing Ebbsfleet fans are understandably cautious of the takeover but many will recognise that there was no way the club could continue in its current capacity to support full-time players.

In answer to one of the questions above, a new board is being selected shortly. Members of MyFC can put themselves forward for consideration and as I don’t have all the details, I’m assuming that they will be voted in.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, I’m happy with the deal, I can’t wait to go to see my first match. Onwards and upwards!

I’m not going to say what I think is going on over this whole issue publicly because it would be fairly libellous. I will say, however, that whilst MyFC the Trust is not for profit, MyFC the company has no such restrictions, and MyFC the Trust has a contract written into its user agreement to exclusively use MyFC the company for some services.

As regards the due diligence, my understanding of the situation last November was that MyFC were all set to sign a deal with one club, only for Ebbsfleet to be announced a couple of days later. If the other clubs weren’t made public because they refused to undergo due diligence, then fair enough – but that wasn’t the reason given in the release accompanying the vote.

I’ll also take the opportunity to ask these questions again, since you seem to have ignored them last time around: If the board at Ebbsfleet is stepping down, who replaces them and how are they voted for? Or (and this is just a hunch), will Mr Brookes decide who these people will be unilaterally?

There are two legal entities: a for-profit company and a not-for-profit society. In essence, the for-profit company runs the website, and is the agent to purchase a club for the not-for-profit society. The 35 pounds is divided 7.50 to the for-profit, 27.50 to the not-for-profit. The agent is giving the members of the not-for-profit society the opportunity to approve its work. It’s there in the rules, Ian and ursus; it has nothing to do with being undemocratic or opaque. And this was spelled out in the legal documents before Tom sent in his money, so he could have refused to join.

There *are* legal reasons for not having information from other clubs – clubs insisted on initial data being held confidential, and only Ebbsfleet agreed to undergo the due diligence designed to unearth any hidden obligations/debts. Imagine being one of the non-Ebbsfleet clubs – why would you allow your data to be public (i.e. given to those journalists who have signed up as MyFC members) if you weren’t reasonably sure the purchase would go through?

And the stadium…why does Ian@200% assume that a new stadium would be owned by Ebbsfleet? EPL clubs own their own stadia because they can afford to and they see it as profitable; there’s no need or profit for Ebbsfleet to own a stadium, hence the alternate goal of “free of charge”. Does Ebbsfleet own Stonebridge Road? No. Did they pay for any of it? I understand they’ve paid some of the modifications, but that’s part of the tradeoff for having a relatively small rent.

What do the existing supporters get? What do they ever get in a sale of their club? In this case, they get a 95+% chance of having all the club debt paid off by January 2010. If they’re so inclined, they’ll start saving for the existing Ebbsfleet Supporters Trust to buy the club dirt-cheap if MyFC fails. (Since the not-for-profit society can’t profit – the sale proceeds will go to charity – MyFC or the administrator don’t have to sell the team to the highest bidder.) If they’re not inclined, they can join MyFC, and a good number already have.

And if the polar bear doesn’t believe that yahoos like me should select a team, he correctly chose not to participate. But he should look again at how many agreed to give Daish the right to spend money without approval of individual purchases. In fact, he should know that one of the long-running disputes on the website is that the members who want to choose who’s playing are afraid that many of us (like me!) will simply approve whatever team selection Daish wants to make for the more-than-near future. Shame that he can’t be bothered to tell us what the “risible spin” is.

Sending in my 105 pounds (three years) has been interesting, all right, just to see how much people assume…

Another thing that I don’t quite follow (of which, as one or two of you may have noticed,there are many) is how undemocratic the vote actually was. Imagine holding a general election in which, instead of there being prime ministerial several candidates, but that you weren’t allowed to vote on all of them – just one that had been chosen, after due diligence, by a self-elected committee. A vote is then held on whether you want the one selected to be the prime minister or not. If the answer is yes, they get the job. If no, the committee go back out and try to find another one that they approve of. There’s no legal or “confidentiality” reason whatsoever why the other candidate clubs couldn’t have been listed, and an open vote held. I thought, after all, that IPSs were supposed to be about transparency in their dealings. MyFC has got a funny idea of what democracy is.

One more thing: if the board at Ebbsfleet is stepping down, who replaces them and how are they voted for? Or (and this is just a hunch), will Mr Brookes decide who these people will be unilaterally?

I agree with most of the points raised, and if there’s a vote on it, I’ll also be voting for the manager to continue to pick the team. I am not opposed to internet supporter ownership in the abstract — but I don’t think it has been done right in this case so far.

David, I hope Dave will be back with more details on the Supporters’ Direct issue, but my understanding is that the consultation has been more lipgloss than substance.

In terms of Nick Harris, we don’t know why he became a member, but he could just have noted it was for research purposes to avoid an appearance of partiality. Since the article, he’s been very chatty on the forums with the members about what he wrote, though he is very avid in asserting he’d written a balanced piece.