Ramadan. That was the first rumour that swirled around Brunton Park by way of explaining the lack of progress in the "billionaire" investment deal.

The suggestion, questionable as it sounded, was that talks had been put on hold until the end of the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, which requires fasting in daylight hours.

Like many rumours of dubious virtue, its source was impossible to determine. But there was a time in July and August last year when the air close to Carlisle's ground was thick with the theory.

It died off in its own time, perhaps when it was recognised that, yes, many Muslim people manage to continue working to some degree during the holy month - and not many stretch it out for several more months, as a way of stalling on an investment proposal already made to a relatively small professional football club in the north of England.

There was no credible way Ramadan could be blamed for a continued lack of dialogue in, say, December. So, in time, other theories started appearing, like weeds through gravel.

There again may be no direct line tracing this to its origin, but this column cannot be alone in having heard speculation in the winter that the "billionaire" no longer had as many billions as he did in May.

The reason, apparently, was that his particular area of business has suffered something of a collapse, and much of the mystery person's wealth went with it.

Once more, this is not just a daft piece of speculation from a distant part of the grapevine. It has been entertained much closer to home at United. Just Carlisle's luck, the theory goes, to find themselves in the sights of the world's unluckiest tycoon.

One wonders, given the often stressed need for confidentiality, how these notions escape the battlements. Or why they do. A cynical mind would suggest just enough hints are dropped to ensure they reach certain ears, for whatever purpose.

On the record, the only explanation for delay came on June 27 last year. Then, United blamed "holidays, illness and the investor's business commitments" for there being no billionaire on the premises. Since, there have only been sporadic bulletins, referring to conference calls and insisting that our man is a "live option" - but declining to explain how. Perhaps not being dead is enough.

The mutterings that fill gaps between these occasional updates tend to occur in the background. In the foreground, the attention has increasingly been occupied by other matters, which at first glance appear unrelated.

The scrapping of the fan representative position, for instance, or the challenge to the Carlisle United Official Supporters' Club to raise £253,700 in six months to avoid having their stake diluted.

Yet they are all connected, even if the joins are not immediately visible. Any disagreements about supporter representation at Brunton Park - and there have been a great many this week - are actually bound tightly to the matter of the billionaire, the never-ending-story that, by and large, is only told in private.

All roads, however winding, lead back to this central issue on the future of Carlisle United. The reduction in fan numbers on the board, and any perceived shortcomings of CUOSC, are linked to the business of holding the club's power players to account.

If the representatives of the fanbase are either stymied, or inadequate, the only people who gain are those who do not care for open scrutiny. And the matter being held back most of all from such scrutiny? The billionaire.

So let us give the door another rap. There has been criticism of CUOSC this week which seemed to find agreement among a number of people. It cannot be denied that the former United Trust are now in a position, as the sole fan voice at United's top table, where their performance must be sharp.

Anything less and we all lose. That ought to be the ethos from here. Yet even this debate, essential though it is, risks obscuring a more important angle.

One of the oddest aspects of the whole billionaire saga is something CUOSC have so far been able to do little about. Whether one regards the supporters' club as brilliant, woeful or somewhere in between, the fact that such a significant shareholder has never been informed in detail about this "genuine and firm" foreign party surely demands suspicion.

As much as anything, if this was a credible pitch for United, one simple phonecall could have changed the game.

It took Andrew Lapping, after all, only a few short months to woo CUOSC. By last March the businessman had successfully persuaded the fans' group to dilute their stake from 25.4 per cent to 10 per cent.

There was no need for an abrupt share issue, laced with ultimatums. No need for a tennis match involving legal letters. Some talks, a laying out of plans, a canny eye for public pronouncements, and that was sufficient to lower the theoretical obstacle of the supporters' portion of United.

So it continues to be the height of bafflement why any credible "billionaire", or his "agent", did not set a single foot down this path, and also why Andrew Jenkins and John Nixon did not point their new suitor in this direction, if they wished a deal to proceed.

Even to give it a chance, why not seek to open the gate that was already ajar? Why restrict "talks" to two directors of United's holding company but ignore one that could hold the key?

And this, recall, was the pattern from the start - not halfway through, by which time Ramadan, the collapse of an industry, a mystery illness, a long cruise or the Moon in Venus could be blamed for the billionaire narrative being nudged sideways.

Why did it never happen, before shade fell on light? Why did CUOSC, hardly the most powerful supporters' body in England, fail to get a friendly message, early on, that could have set a fairly straightforward set of wheels in motion?

Why has an apparently "live option" still not been introduced to them? And why is the club's current scheme, a £1m share issue whose details are opaque, suddenly the best plan?

Whether it is right or wrong to argue that CUOSC could have been a lot more bad-tempered about being kept out of the loop for so long, these questions remain vastly relevant.

Were they answered convincingly, other aspects might be easier to swallow. Until such a time, everything else that occurs must be regarded as a few levels down, and under a cloud. How can this please anyone with Carlisle United honestly at heart?