TRUST STFC chairman John Ward has applauded the Football League for their diligence in assessing the sale of Swindon Town to new owners, despite the immense frustration it has caused fans of the Robins.

The takeover of the club to a consortium fronted by Jed McCrory is expected to be officially announced on Monday, ending three weeks of speculation regarding Town’s future.

In reality the sale will have taken less than five weeks to complete but, after the prospective new investors were unmasked publicly so early in the process, some supporters have gained the impression that the saga has dragged on longer than necessary.

Ward is a big believer in sustainability and financial prudence within football and, while he acknowledged that the takeover has not been ratified as quickly as most would have liked, he stressed that the potential dangers of an improper assessment of McCrory’s group by the League would have been much worse.

“The Trust would be the first, if the Football League allowed some cowboys to take over a club, to cry about football not being properly regulated and so on. We therefore can’t necessarily expect them to deal with Swindon at breakneck speed,” he said.

“They have to do their job and they have to do it properly. It is of course a cause for frustration but I don’t think it’s any more than that.

“It’s bad luck that it coincided with the end of the January transfer window when it was rather crucial that Paolo was able to make decisions about players. It was also unfortunate that the Football League is presumably very busy at that stage of the year so it couldn’t necessarily expedite its regulatory bodies regarding us.

“Of course it is frustrating and it must be very frustrating for Paolo as well.

“What is important is we don’t want to be out of the frying pan and into the fire with these guys and therefore it is important that somebody like the Football League does this sort of investigation that the new owners are the sort of people with the integrity and resources to run a football club in the way in which we expect our club to be run.

“The Fitton consortium absolutely did that.”

The Advertiser understands that McCrory’s new board will consist of Martin King, Steve Murrall and Gary Hooper. It is believed that the consortium investing in the club will be able to speak publicly about their takeover at the County Ground for the first time next week.