Clyde chairman John Taylor has warned the club are in a "critical period" as he pleaded with fans to help them raise £75,000 to compete in next season's SPFL.
In a worrying statement for Bully Wee fans, Taylor also moved to "dismiss the myth" that they received a huge windfall from this season's Scottish Cup clash with Celtic and warned there's a distinct possibility Clyde will not be in a position to play competitive football in 2020/21.
Taylor explained how the Covid-19 shutdown has impacted the Cumbernauld side and laid bare the club's losses in recent seasons.
A new fundraising scheme, 1877 Rewards, has been launched to help supporters donate to the club, but Taylor has stressed more will need to be done by the fans if they want to see their team in action again.
He said: “There is a possibility that we won’t be able to enter the club into competitive football next season, depending on the start date. There are clubs who have stated publicly, and privately, that given certain circumstances, their preference would be to ‘mothball’ for a season.
“That situation would arise if clubs had to put their players and staff through costly testing protocols, pay their players and staff after the removal of the furlough scheme and play their matches behind closed doors. In that scenario, with no income coming in, ‘mothballing’ is something we can’t discount, but we are determined to play if at all possible.
“Most businesses have been affected by this pandemic and individuals who have supported the club extremely generously over many years are no exception.
"However, in terms of the club’s financial strength going forward, we can’t pretend that Covid-19 has suddenly thwarted our upward trend on the football field. It hasn’t. The downside of improving our league status over the last two seasons has come at a significant cost, and one that is not sustainable."
A planned fundraiser in March had to be cancelled due to the shutdown kicking in and Taylor hoped to use that to help support Danny Lennon's men on the pitch.
Taylor continued: "As owners of the club will be aware, we had incurred losses of £68,000 and £94,000 in the previous two seasons. That trend simply couldn't continue.
"The strategy of recruiting a highly capable management team and a talented squad of players had achieved our on-field objectives, but a major rethink was required to maintain the growing ambitions of our loyal support.
“Only by increasing the level of financial support from the fans through a programme of regular monthly donations, can we achieve what we all want for our club.
"Without that we will have a playing budget that will eventually see us scrambling to avoid play-offs at the wrong end of League 2.
“In March we had set a donations target for what we believed would allow us to be competitive at the top end of League 1. That figure is £75,000.
“As things stand at the moment, our playing budget is shaping as one of the lowest in Scottish senior football.
“The 1877 Rewards launch on Wednesday generated a promising response in the first 48 hours, but frankly that’s got to be the real priority for us all if we are to achieve that target of £75,000 in donations.
"Every penny received through the 1877 scheme goes straight to the bottom line of Danny’s playing budget.
“We understand that our fans are also feeling the effects of the Covid-19 situation, but we hope you will do what you can to support the club at this critical period."
Clyde hosted Celtic in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup in February that helped boost the club's finances, but Taylor insisted there was no huge gain from the televised clash, which ended in a 3-0 defeat for the League One side.
He said: “Despite repeated public statements to quash this myth, this still appears to linger in the minds of some of our fans. Had the game been played at Celtic Park, in front of 50,000 fans, the financial outcome for the club would have been transformational.
"As it was, we squeezed 7,500 into Broadwood on lower admission prices than we wanted to charge, and incurred massive costs of delivery.
“The level of resource required to deliver a game of that scale, is out of proportion to the modest income generated.
"One small example was the level of stewarding. Our bill for the Celtic game was for 135 stewards rather than our customary 16, and that scale of increased costs was repeated in other areas of our operation on the day.
“The surplus from that match merely had the effect of negating our trading loss for the season and, alongside the very generous response to our Covid-19 donations appeal, prevented us from being in a critical state already.”
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