THE Pars have landed a group of investors from Germany that chairman Ross McArthur says are the real deal – but who are they?

There are four main players within the DAFC Fussball GmbH group.

Thomas Meggle, Damir Keretic, Nick Teller and Dr Albrecht Gundermann are the quartet involved and Meggle is, perhaps, the most high-profile.

The 45-year-old, who was born in Munich, played professionally for St Pauli across three separate spells, making his debut for the Hamburg-based club in 1997. He went on to coach the club before becoming its sporting director, a role that McArthur confirmed he will take up at East End in due course.

In German sports magazine 'Kicker', he is quoted as saying: "We want to build something with sustainability. We will not act like many other investors in Germany."

Keretic, who also lives in Hamburg, is a Croatian-born former professional tennis player who competed in the 1980s, including for West Germany in the Davis Cup.

He also ran the German operation for sports marketing agency IMG, as well as his own marketing firm, which he went on to sell.

Teller, who was born in London, is a former chairman, and is now on the advisory board, of Germany's Commerzbank and, in addition to a variety of other non-executive roles, he is the honorary British Consulate in Hamburg.

Dr Gundermann, who is a shipping specialist and managing partner at maritime organisation Euromar, is also a legal professor.

McArthur commented: "Damir ran the German operation for IMG, a massive sports marketing agency, and he set up his own marketing company and sold that. He's got a lot of really good ideas and contacts that we can tap into.

"Thomas, on the football side played in the Bundesliga, he coached in the Bundesliga, he was the last person to score the winning goal for St Pauli against Bayern Munich, so that now tops Jim Leishman's Rangers story!

"Thomas, in due course, will be sporting director. He's got a fantastic contact base across Europe, but particularly in Germany, and what people maybe don't understand – and I didn't until many months ago when we started the negotiations – in Germany you've got Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, and then below that it's a regionalised system and there's a lot of very gifted, technically-good players who don't get the opportunity to move because it's kind of a closed shop, so we can tap into these players who we can bring over to Dunfermline and help develop.

"The whole model is about developing young players so we can develop young Scottish players. It will always have a core of Scottish players – this isn't about turning the team into a group of foreign players or European players.

"We've now got access to a range of contacts that we could only dream of through Thomas, so that's not just in Europe, that's in Africa and such like."