Rochdale have launched a desperate plea for investment as the club tries to avoid possible liquidation by the end of March.
The National League club’s chairman, Simon Gauge, has said Rochdale require a cash injection of £2m. Dale have run up losses of more than £1m over the past year, during which they have been relegated from the Football League and their financial situation has deteriorated.
Gauge has called an emergency meeting of shareholders at the club’s Spotland stadium on 7 March in an effort to find investors. He said he was “looking for an investor to inject £2m to gain 90% of the club”.
Gauge has been involved since shortly after Rochdale’s relegation from League One in 2021 and, as chairman, oversaw Rochdale’s move to becoming fan-owned in August 2022 after rebuffing a “hostile takeover” from the Morton House consortium. In that time Gauge and his family have loaned the club £566,000, he said.
“Once a club of our size is on a descending trajectory with League One costs and reducing revenues, an injection of cash is needed to arrest the decline,” Gauge said in a statement. “We have come extremely close to securing investment on a couple of occasions but have never, for various reasons, got anything over the line. We have also spoken to many investors who have shown interest in the club but never proceeded.”
The chairman said he could no longer finance the club, which stopped receiving Premier League solidarity money after dropping out of the Football League but is the recipient of parachute payments. Rochdale played a record 36 consecutive seasons in English football’s fourth tier from 1974 to 2010. They are 12th in the National League, six points clear of the relegation zone, but could face a 10-point deduction if they enter administration. Gauge wants a resolution passed at the EGM to create the conditions sought by investors.
“We are a long way into a cost-cutting exercise at the club to get us to a National League cost base,” he said. “We will continue to make these tough financial decisions over the next month or so whilst protecting, as far as possible, the first-team budget. This means that when investment is secured, growth can be achieved with a controlled cost base in place and all efforts can be put into increasing revenues.
“Let me leave you in no doubt, this resolution needs to be passed for us to have any chance of securing the required investment that will ensure the long-term future of our club. If it isn’t passed, the threat of liquidation at the end of March is very real. The passing of this resolution does not guarantee saving the club, but it will certainly give it a fighting chance. The existence of Rochdale AFC is at stake.”
