Mcnulty’s desire for Dale sale resolution
ROCHDALE boss Jim Mcnulty is eager for ‘resolution’ in the ongoing takeover talks surrounding the football club.
The head coach said the noise surrounding the potential sale of the club had reached a ‘crescendo’ since Thursday’s crunch vote, in which shareholders voted in favour of diluting their holdings in order to create nine million new shares.
By doing so, they were paving the way for a takeover of the club. With World Soccer Holdings CEO Scott Dyer expected at the Crown Oil Arena for Saturday’s game against Oxford City having already signed a letter of intent to purchase the club, the story took another twist with news a second bidder from the US had entered the race.
The Football Club LLC (TFC), a Texas-based group headed by businessmen Justin Corrado and David Dwyer, has signed a letter of intent to buy the Spotland club.
In the event, Dyer and World Soccer Holdings representatives were unable to attend on Saturday following an issue with connecting flights from the US – they were expected to be at Tuesday’s home game against Woking – but the fact they couldn’t make it to the game did little to quieten the understandable clamour around the club.
Mcnulty has been trying to maintain the squad’s full focus on the National League programme, but accepts it’s difficult with futures at stake.
“I’m human, so as much as I try to remain as distant as possible from everything that isn’t football, I can’t help but pay attention to it, read it, follow what the outcomes are going to be,” he said.
“It’s all-important to me, it’s my club too, like it is the fans’ and I care about the players. I know at the moment they’re directly affected by what some of these outcomes are going to be and there was obviously a significant night for the football club on Thursday.
“Truthfully, I was never too nervous about which way that vote was going to go.
“I saw that as the only logical resolution, despite the fact the club did issue the results and it surprised me there was, I think, 15 per cent of votes maybe against the outcome that we have gone with. That surprised me.
“I just want resolution. It’s been a really disappointing backdrop to my first season as manager and our first season in the National League.
“I’ll never forget, and I don’t think it can ever be underestimated, how strong the players have had to be throughout what’s gone on this season. There’s been a crescendo in the noise this week, but it’s been going on all season, it just depends how much attention you’ve been paying to it.
“There’s a crescendo right now, but it’s been constant behind the scenes, it’s been constant interested parties, noninterested parties, it has been nonstop and don’t forget, we had the smallest squad in the National League. After the summer window we’ve signed nothing but free loans.
“There’s been constant limitation after limitation on what we’re doing and even now things are still being stripped because we still don’t know what way all this is going to go.
“There’s a mixture of feelings about it all, but I just want resolution but I want resolution for the players so I want them to be at ease and I just want to play football.”
Saturday saw Dale draw 2-2 against bottom-ofthe-table Oxford, a disappointing result and performance and one which perhaps highlighted Mcnulty’s concerns over focus.
“The team is not in the most confident place,” he said. “I’ve been trying to push for focus, trying to work predominantly to get the team focused because I feel there has been a lot of distractions and worries and that’s not helped us in key moments in games.
“I look back on certain moments in games that maybe other people didn’t feel were important, but I did, along the chain of results that could become positive or negative.
“I just feel focus what’s required.” is