Apologies if this has already been posted but how long can these crooked ***** get away with it?
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Businessman Andrew Fitton has not ruled out reviving a bid to take control at Swindon Town - but admits the chances look slim after a proposed takeover deal collapsed yesterday.
Wiltshire-based Fitton and his consortium withdrew their offer amid a stalemate over ownership of lucrative County Ground development rights.
The rights, which would yield significant profits from any future property deal, are owned by a seperate holding company. Fitton wanted them returned to the club as part of his transaction. He abandoned the bid after a phone call made it clear the issue was unlikely to be resolved quickly.
Fitton said: "I had warned the people at the club that these things have a lifespan. I am angry and exasperated with these people because they are messing with other people's lives. Our consortium is one of high-level business individuals with a lot of money involved and they have other things to do with their time."
Fitton claims the current owners agreed to transfer the development rights back to the club when the deal was hammered out in principle. But that transaction failed to materialise.
"The only way they could get it back on now would be to come and apologise to us and do everything they agreed to at the outset," said Fitton. "They were happy to do the deal but said they couldn't give us the development rights straightaway. They asked us to trust them and said that they would sort the problem out later. We couldn't take that chance - and that was the real key issue.
"We expect people to do what they say they are going to and if they don't then we don't want anything to do with them."
Swindon were last night exploring other options, with the threat of a winding-up order hanging over the club.