Rochdale AFC takeover must happen before end of March or club faces liquidation

The chairman of Rochdale AFC has warned the club could go out of business by the end of next month.

Simon Gauge said he has been trying to secure new investment for the struggling club for 14 months, after they were relegated from the football league for the first time in 102 years.

National League Dale are looking for an investor to inject £2million for 90 percent of the club to give it a chance of survival.

Gauge has called an EGM for next month where shareholders will be asked to agree to an emergency restructuring that would create nine million new shares.

In a statement for the EGM he said: "The club has one major asset, the stadium, but little else of financial value. It is asset-rich and cash poor."

He said he did not want the club to disappear and he had been subsidising the club in recent months, loaning the club £566k.

"My family has done this to try and buy the time to find investment that can take the club forward. My family has now reached its credit limit and cannot continue to do this."

“In an ideal world, we would have an investor in place before calling the EGM, but we do not have that luxury of time."

Want more on the issues affecting the North? Our podcast, From the North answers the questions that matter to our region.