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On Thursday (Aug 26th) Killie were in the news when Jamie Moffat announced that his family were looking for a new investor to come into the club and put in £1m, as well as guaranteeing the debts which were reported to be around the £11m mark. Moffat indicated in effect that the club was for sale and that he would not be too difficult to deal with.

Kilmarnock’s future may well be female. Marie Macklin, who was widely touted to take over Kilmarnock with a £2.1m offer for a majority of shares last autumn, confirmed yesterday that she is looking seriously at making another bid for the club.

Kilmarnock’s financial situation is not as black as has been painted, as around half the debt comes from the expenditure on the Park Hotel adjacent to Rugby Park, and the good news is that the hotel is already making a profit.

Around £6m is down to football debt, accrued as Kilmarnock developed their ground and invested in players to try and win success in the SPL - doesn’t that sound a familiar story?

Macklin is on business in America until Thursday, but has spent the weekend consulting her advisers as to whether she should make a bid to take over the club to which her family has strong links. "I haven’t really had time to think about it all properly," said Macklin before flying out to the States. "It all came out of the blue and we were actually at a sports quiz night for the local police charity in the Park Hotel when we heard what was happening. What I need now is to take advice and more importantly take a look at the big picture. We need to see whether we want to go back to where we left off last October, and I personally want to see if this is something that I want to be getting involved in at this moment in time."

Having been to the well once, Macklin may well have got the taste for acquiring Kilmarnock and it will be a surprise if she does not at least put her hat in the ring. The man charged with finding a buyer is James Fingland of accountancy giants BDO Stoy Hayward’s office in Glasgow. A spokesman for Fingland said yesterday: "We have already had several expressions of interest from potential investors.

What is clear, however, is that the Moffat family’s tenure at Kilmarnock is nearing its end and Marie Macklin paid tribute to them for their work.

"I really admire Jamie for coming out and making his statement," said Macklin. "In all the dealings that I’ve had with Jamie and with the Moffat family, I can honestly say they were honourable people and even though negotiations did not go as we would have liked last year, nevertheless I admire him for stating that they now need to move on."

Macklin feels that Kilmarnock’s problems reflect a nationwide footballing scourge called debt. "It is a Scottish problem," she said, "but the situation in football here in Ayrshire seems to be particularly drastic. I said last year that across the board in Scotland we needed to get our house in order. We all know what has happened - the house of cards has come falling down."

Macklin says she will take a hard-headed business approach to deciding whether to get involved in Kilmarnock. "We always looked on Kilmarnock football club first and foremost as a business. We do not look at it as a rich man or rich woman’s toy. Football clubs are not charities, they are businesses."