CHAIRMAN Ross McArthur has hailed the acquisition of a majority shareholding in Dunfermline Athletic by German-based investors as “the most exciting day” in his time at the club.

Yesterday (Wednesday) morning, Press Sport was invited onto a Zoom call with McArthur and three members of the DAFC Fussball GmbH group – Damir Keretic, Nick Teller and Thomas Meggle – as it was announced they had increased their stake by 45.1 per cent.

The investment group, which also includes Dr Albrecht Gundermann, are now majority shareholders in the Pars, having added to the 30 per cent of the club they purchased last September.

The quartet, located in Hamburg, had an option to acquire the additional 45.1 per cent by May 22 next year but, at the request of the current board of directors, agreed to bring that forward to allow the club to “implement a number of strategic plans”.

Those include creating a dedicated training base and a youth academy, and McArthur said the move was “fantastic news”.

“When you consider that the guys still haven’t been able to travel because of the restrictions and everything else that’s been facing the world, I can’t speak highly enough of the fact that they’ve done this,” he said.

“I think it shows the spirit that we have within the camp now of working together on a collaborative basis, so I can’t thank them enough for making that commitment.

“It now allows us to make investments and changes in the infrastructure around the club that we wouldn’t be able to do without this investment.

“To get that level of certainty, in times that are still very, very uncertain, is fantastic news for the club.

“Certainly, in my time as chairman, this is probably the most exciting day that I’ve had since I’ve been involved in the club, and I look forward to what the future holds.”

Mr Keretic, who has joined the board of directors along with Mr Meggle and Mr Teller, said it was their intention to spend a lot of time in Dunfermline once COVID-19 restrictions allow, and explained they had spent more than two years looking for the right club to invest in.

“We were looking for a club where we felt that the people we would have to deal with would be on our wavelength, that we enjoyed their company, we felt had the same moral values as us, and we felt we could implement our ideas,” he said.

“We looked in Portugal, Austria, Denmark, England and, really at the end, we felt DAFC ticked pretty much all of the boxes, all of the things that we were looking for.

“We approached Dunfermline, not the other way round. We were looking at all the leagues in Europe, first, second and third divisions, and suddenly, boom – Dunfermline was the city and the club that we thought could make sense for us.

“Once we met the people – maybe we didn’t know them well enough, but we think we know after a year and a half – we saw, wow, these are really great guys, and the ideas we want to get through, they are very happy to do this with us.”

Mr Teller said: “I think it’s important to state that these are structural investments.

“We’re not investing in order to splash out the money on doubling the team costs and just be a flash in the pan – this is a long-term topic.

“We feel totally on board with the community-led aspect of the club, and with the board, that these are infrastructure investments which, over time, just after the history of the club and coming out of administration, is just basically the next step of rebuilding what you would expect a club of this size, and the standing of Dunfermline, to have.”