Raith Rovers: Owner John Sim 'fairly confident' new investor will be installed at Stark's Park club this summer

In recent months, Sim has been attempting to sell the Kirkcaldy outfit which has suffered financial turmoil over the last two decades, having lost an average of £150,000 a season since 2005.

Representatives of Silverbear Capital Inc discussed a potential takeover with Rovers in January, but the Thailand-based supremo rejected it after Raith chairman Steven MacDonald fell out with Silver Bear mouthpiece Mike Dellios after branding him “unprofessional”.

A consortium of Fife-based businessmen now appears to be frontrunners to buy Rovers for around £3 million, with Sim giving an update this week.

“I think we’ve got to feel positive looking forward,” he told Raith TV. “I mean we’ve got three options.

"One is status quo which is not acceptable for various reasons. Secondly would be an outside investor, a la Silverbear and there are pluses and minuses.

"They’ve lots of money but no feeling for the place and their ambition is quite clear.

"Flip it and it’s just a question of what time they flip it in but they can add value during their period.

"And then the third option is to get a local investor and there aren’t a rush of local investors to be perfectly honest who have got the time and the patience and the willingness to do it on their own.

"But we have received one investor pack, because we sent investor packs out to anyone who expressed an interest and I’d say there have been about half a dozen people who’ve asked enough questions, half a dozen groups, to suggest they had an interest in at least finding out more.

"We’ve received one investor pack completed and we’ve had discussions with a number of options and I’m fairly confident that come the close season we will have new people involved.

"But the people that we’re looking to bring in are bringing expertise more than money and that’s what we need.

"We really need to improve our commercial offering because it’s getting more competitive, it’s becoming more digital.

"There are a lot of people who’ve got significant discretionary funds to invest in a day out at the football.

“But they’re going down to Newcastle, or they’re going down further, to Manchester or to London.

"Or to Dundee United, or to – dare I say it – Rangers and Celtic.

"So we’ve got to work at that and we’ve been talking to a number of people coming in.

"We’re confident – he said looking for some wood to touch – that we can get someone who’s had extensive premier eague experience to join us and we hope to be able to announce that at the end of this month or the beginning of May.”

Having outlined his commercial plans, Sim then focused on the club’s football operations.

He added: “We need to understand better the increasing complexity around players’ contracts.

"We have not got the players’ contracts right over the past few years.

"We have been pandering to agents, we have been signing one sided contracts, we need to strengthen our area there.

"And we’ve got a guy who’s got extensive experience, well respected in Scottish football, who’s already involved on a day-to-day basis but having seen and tasted it we’re hoping he’s willing to commit to putting more in there.

"We also have some people who’ve had experience of running football clubs in the past.

"We do need a CEO, we need a CEO who understand the football business. And we’ve been talking to a number of potential candidates.

"We’re fairly close to finalising one who has got football experience, CEO football experience and also retail experience.”