Crisis club Bury insist they are “confident” they can save their EFL status despite being given a final two-week deadline to come up with financial guarantees.
The Shakers have already had their first two matches of the League One season, and a Carabao Cup fixture against Sheffield Wednesday, postponed due to their failure to meet the EFL’s requirements.
But despite the looming threat of having their 125-year league membership terminated, Bury issued a battling statement on Friday in which they vowed to fight for their survival.
The club said: “As a club, we understand the frustration that our fans must be feeling due to recent events.
“We are asking that you stand by us and be resilient in the face of adversity, as we strive for a solution with the EFL to help get Bury Football Club back on the right track.
“Once we have supplied the EFL with the recently requested additional information, we are confident that our embargo will be lifted.
“In anticipation of this, we would expect that the EFL will not remove us from the Football League.”
Meanwhile England Women’s coach Phil Neville has spoken of his strong emotional ties with the club, where his mother Jill works as club secretary and the main stand is named after his late father Neville.
“Bury are one of the oldest clubs in the Football League who are now probably days away from going out of existence,” Phil Neville, part-owner of League Two side Salford, told PA.
“Regardless of the money being invested in other clubs there is a fit and proper way of running a football club and at the moment there are clubs in the EFL that are not being run properly.
“I think, from a bigger picture, that there has to be guidelines or rules where if an owner is taking over a club they have to pass stringent tests.
“Bury is a sad case, it’s a club that is close to my heart, my dad has a stand named after him at that club.
“What is happening there needs to be sorted out fast or Bury are going to lose that football club that has been an identity to that town for 125 years. That’s sad.”
Steve Dale replaced Stewart Day as Bury owner in December 2018, having bought the debt-ridden club for just £1.
The owner, who has come in for criticism, has shared his anger at the EFL but James Frith, MP for Bury North, believes there is shared blame, claiming arguments have come first.
“I’m so angry that the owner and the EFL have forgotten about the fans and the football club whilst they bicker and settle their own scores,” he wrote in a statement following that from the EFL on Thursday.
“Let me also say to Steve Dale, I will help you sell this club. Get going and do the right thing. To save the club you must sell the club Mr Dale.”
