Rochdale face liquidation by end of March unless new buyer can be found
Rochdale have launched a desperate plea for investment as the 117-year-old club bid to stave off the threat of liquidation by the end of next month.
The embattled National League club have been losing around £1.2 million every season for the past six years and are now fighting to avoid extinction.
Simon Gauge, the Rochdale chairman, says the club now require a cash injection of £2 million and a new investor in place by the end of March.
Gauge has called an emergency meeting of shareholders at Rochdale’s Spotland stadium on March 7 in the hope of passing a resolution that can create conditions more favourable to potential investors.
Rochdale dropped out of the Football League for the first time in 102 years last season and Gauge says they are “looking for an investor to inject £2m to gain 90% of the club”.
In a statement, Gauge left shareholders and supporters under no illusions about the severity of the club’s plight.
“Let me leave you in no doubt, this resolution needs to be passed at the EGM for us to have any chance of securing the required investment that will ensure the long-term future of our club,” Gauge said.
“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.
“To be clear, the existence of Rochdale AFC is at stake. The opportunity to give a long-term future is now in the shareholders’ hands.”
Gauge became involved with Rochdale soon after the club’s relegation from League One in 2021. He subsequently oversaw the club’s move to becoming fan-owned in August 2022 after a “hostile takeover” by the Morton House consortium was rebuffed.
Gauge said he and his family have loaned the club £566,000 in an effort to “try and buy time to find investment that can take the club forward” but said his family had “now reached its credit limit and cannot continue to do this”.
Gauge said Rochdale were in talks with “interested parties” but that they will not move forward until new conditions for investment are in place. They include changes to the share structure and debt agreements.
“This EGM is essential to achieving the required conditions that an investor wants,” Gauge said.
Gauge said Rochdale have been in a tailspin. “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,” he said.
“We got this through the issue of shares. Unfortunately, this is an annual requirement. That situation has not changed a great deal and the search for an investor has taken up a lot of my time over the past 14 months.
“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.”
