? Parties remain interested in 128-year-old club
? 'No alternative but to terminate the contracts'
Time is running out for Darlington Football Club's existence after the administrator made every member of staff redundant, including the caretaker manager and former long-serving defender Craig Liddle, as well as all the players.
A consortium of supporters who formed the Darlington Football Club Rescue Group told the administrator they have an investor potentially interested in funding the club, but need more time to formulate a business plan. The administrator, Harvey Madden of Rowlands accountants, gave them until midday on Tuesday to provide him with the money to continue, or he would be forced to put the 129-year-old club into liquidation.
In the meantime, Madden said he has no money to pay Darlington's wages or bills, and would become personally liable if he were to keep the club running. So he called Liddle and all the players and staff to a meeting, where they were told he had to lay them off immediately, and handed out letters of redundancy.
In a statement, Madden said: "Given the current financial position of the club and, as a consequence of my legal obligations, I have had no alternative but to terminate the contracts of all playing staff and the retained administration staff. Notwithstanding this, there remain parties interested in either injecting funds into the club to enable it to continue operating or acquiring the club.
"Every effort is being made to progress this to try to save the club. However, at this stage I have still not received any formal offers and, unless a deal is concluded as a matter of urgency, time will have run out for Darlington Football Club."
Darlington, now in the Blue Square Bet Conference Premier, were formed in 1883, were founder members both of the Northern League, in 1889, and of the Third Division (North) in 1921.
In more recent times the club has struggled for financial survival and in 1999 was taken over by George Reynolds, a former career criminal who in 2005 went to prison again for tax fraud. He built the Quakers, whose crowd in the Conference rarely gets above 1,700, a 25,000 seat arena which he named after himself.
Raj Singh, the third owner of the club since Reynolds was forced to put it into administration in 2003, gave up himself a fortnight ago and put the club into administration having sunk around �2m into trying to win promotion.
John Bramhall, the deputy chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, who has been representing the players made redundant, said: "Major commitments to players and wages were made as recently as the summer; some players have left other clubs and moved up to play for Darlington, taking on commitments to do so. It is very disappointing for the players to face this situation now ? two have not been paid since October, and the rest since December."
Claire Stone, secretary of the Darlington Supporters Trust, said that plans have been made to start a new club, should the worst happen, and Darlington fall into liquidation.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/16/darlington-staff-redundant-administration
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