BY CHRIS MCNULTY
CASH-STRAPPED Finn Harps need to raise €48,000 by December 21st – or the Donegal club will go out of business.
That was the stark message given to a meeting of the club’s shareholders in Ballybofey tonight.
The club has oustanding debts to the tune of almost €50,000 that must be met by the December 21st date in order for the club’s application for a licence for the 2012 season to be processed.
Harps finished the season in ninth place in the First Division – and have seen gate receipts plummet by some €54,000 compared to their 2010 figures.
Club Chairman Joey O’Leary admitted after the meeting that the club was ‘on the brink’ as they revealed that they must meet their oustanding debts for 2011, including a six-week period of wages, or face extinction.
Finn Harps chairman Joey O'Leary, pictured here with Director of Football Felix Healy and team manager Peter Hutton, has said that the club needs to raise almost €50,000 by Christmas just to survive.
“We have a large task on our hands in a very short period of time,” he told the Donegal News.
“It’s a scenario that is frightening to say the least. The club has a deadline, we’re confident that we can do it and we’ll do all we can to achieve it.
“If we don’t achieve the licence we don’t have a product – that’s the bottom line for Finn Harps at the moment.”
Tonight’s meeting saw eleven names go forward from an extremely small section of the club’s shareholders (only 5 per cent) who attended the meeting to join the existing board in running the club until its AGM in February.
Harps representatives praised the efforts of League of Ireland Champions Shamrock Rovers who had purchased 70 tickets for a fundraising draw in the last week – and a fund-raising friendly game between the club looks set to take place in the coming weeks.
SEE MONDAY’S DONEGAL NEWS FOR FURTHER COVERAGE OF TONIGHT’S MEETING
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