Mr Booth, declining to talk to Chad for the past week, spoke to national sports radio station 5 Live on Thursday evening as a follow-up to its recent clubs in crisis feature.

He said: "I am hopeful that within the next few days that we may be able to announce that the club has been sold. I can only remain cautiously optimisitic."

Chad understands that takeover talks between Mr Booth - brought to the club to broker a sale for controversial owner Keith Haslam - and one of the five interested parties in the club will continue on Friday morning.

Chad exclusively revealed earlier in the week that Mr Haslam appeared to have five possible sale choices - the maverick businessman John Batchelor who claims he is the front runner, Glapwell chairman and local man Colin Hancock, an Australian consortium, a Mansfield-based group and a possible interest from two or three local businessmen in a deal which would see the controversial owner retain 30% of the club.

• 5 groups in Stags takeover talks

Chief executive Stephen Booth also reacted on 5 Live to the merger of the club's four major supporters groups into Stags Fans United - and its call for fans to boycott season ticket sales and businesses to put on hold sponsorship and commercial deals until a sale is completed.

• Mansfield Town fans groups unite to call for season ticket boycott

SFU is an amalgamtion of the Stags Supporters Association (SSA), TEAM Mansfield (TM), Stags Fans For Change (SFFC) and the Ollerton Stags Supporters Club (OSSC).

When introduced by 5 Live as the man brought to the club to try to secure a sale, Mr Booth admitted: "It is a tough job not helped by a small number of fans who appear hellbent on making things more difficult for the club.

"As recently as yesterday they announced in the local press that they would encourage fans not to purchase season tickets."

And when asked why the supporters were taking this action, and was it because they wanted to buy the Stags, Mr Booth replied: "If they wanted to takeover they could have come in and done so long long ago. I really don't know - the fact is that the club is solvent, has money in the bank, doesn't owe anything to the Revenue . . . I am bewildered, I really am."

The chief executive, who said he could not comment on the recent boardroom assault on Mr Haslam because of an ongoing police investigation, recently had a public fallout with supporters.

He made an attack on the SSA in the last matchday programme of the season - and his decision to wrongly portray the OSSC stance as not being supportive of the SSA's stance over the ticketing snub for the last match of the season at Dagenham further angered supporters.

Chad understands that the club is expected to issue a statement, probably on Friday, critical of the SFU's stance and in particular those businesses which have agreed not to put money into the club until a sale is underway.

However, on Thursday club chairman Tony Egginton, Mansfield's mayor, said that he broadly understood the SFU pposition and agreed that Mr Haslam needed to complete a sale quickly.

It is believed that the takeover talks are delaying a decision on the future of manager Paul Holland, who has repeatedly asked for the Stags to make him manager for their first season in non league football.

• Bap hands in transfer request

The players have also been left in limbo by the takeover talks, with some openly questioning if they are going to be offered new contracts for next season - or are not wanted for the Blue Square Premier campaign.

On Wednesday defender Alex John-Baptiste, one of a only a few players under contract for next season, had a transfer request granted the club - a decision revealed only late on Thursday by the club.