Bury FC owner Steve Dale accepts takeover offer for debt-ridden club

The owner of debt-ridden Bury FC has accepted a takeover offer from a London-based consortium C&N Sporting Risk.

However, the proposed 11th-hour rescue deal must still be ratified by the English Football League (EFL).

Bury, who have been in the league for 125 years, had faced being booted out of League One if it could not prove it had the funds to stay in the EFL by midnight.

But as the deadline passed early on Saturday morning, an EFL spokesman said: “The EFL has this evening received notification that Steve Dale has accepted an offer from C&N Sporting Risk for the sale of Bury FC.

“We are currently in discussions with the potential purchaser and await information to allow the Board to consider a request for an extension to Friday’s deadline.”

Current owner Mr Dale, who bought the loss-making and heavily indebted club for £1 in December from the property developer Stewart Day, has said he has provided proof of funding.

He told Sky Sports News on Friday evening he “saved the club” and is not the “asset-stripper” some critics make him out to be, while blaming the league for the club’s predicament.

Mr Dale said: “We are in a position now where clearly anything I say they don’t believe. The media, present company excluded, have made me out to be the bad guy. I saved this club.

“How can you strip from something that’s got nowt?

“Bury had got nothing. Stewart Day put that club into, you know, it was insolvent, it was bust, end of story, when I got there.

“I could have walked away and with hindsight I should’ve walked away, but I chose to stay. I got the CVA [company voluntary arrangement] through. We were made up when we got the CVA through.

“We had got a great squad in training. We were ready to sign them and they stopped us. The EFL stopped us.

“It’s unfair. Since when does a guy who’s trying to save a club get kicked, I don’t understand. I didn’t put Bury in 40 million quid’s worth of debt. I didn’t. I inherited it. Never took a penny out. I tried to save it.”

The Shakers’ last match at the club’s Gigg Lane stadium was a pre-season friendly on 24 July.

Last season they won promotion from League Two.

But as the situation became increasingly dire over the summer, fans held protests, including one, former director Joy Hart, who handcuffed herself to a drainpipe.

Others left a coffin bearing the message: “RIP Bury FC 1885?”

Bury have had six of its competitive matches suspended so far this season, which it began with a 12-point deduction imposed by the league when the CVA was sanctioned in July.

(c) Sky News 2019: Bury FC owner Steve Dale accepts takeover offer for debt-ridden club