Dundee United backers Alastair Borthwick and Hugh Duncan are not regarded as potential buyers of the club.

Both Duncan and Borthwick have invested heavily in the Tangerines, with the former giving soft loans stretching well into seven figures and the latter unveiled just this week as the wealthy fan who signed a cheque for £300,000 to help United out with cash flow.

American-based banker Borthwick and Duncan, the retired business man from Edinburgh, are willing benefactors.

However, neither has expressed any interest in buying out Tannadice chairman Stephen Thompson’s majority shareholding and taking the club on.

Thompson was asked if the subject of a sale had been raised during the investment talks and he replied that it hadn’t because he was aware that they were not interested in buying him out.

He said: “I know they are not.

“I am not going into the kind of conversations we had with them and each circumstance is different.

“I am under confidentiality and whatever is in the agreements is in the agreements.

“But they are not waiting in the wings to take the club on, no.

“I have indicated that if someone wants to come forward with a credible and properly-funded proposal for the club going forward then the door is open.

“It is not just about shares.

“We need people who can actually run the place.”

With no serious buyer on the horizon, Thompson, who put himself forward for questioning by the media this week for the first time since speaking exclusively to The Courier last June, has urged the supporters to stay behind the club even if they are unhappy with him as chairman.

He said: “It is their club.

“We all want to be together for the club going forward.

“I know there are a few people not happy with me but this is about supporting the club that we love.

“If we don’t stick together then you know (the consequences). We don’t want the club to be in a certain place, put it that way.”