How the Class of 92’s Salford dream turned into a nightmare with £23m losses, desperate need for investment after losing a billionaire backer and at risk of a ‘crushing’ relegation,

 

How the Class of 92’s Salford dream turned into a nightmare with £23m losses, desperate need for investment after losing a billionaire backer and at risk of a ‘crushing’ relegation.

 

Salford City have been stuck in League Two since their promotion in 2019

 

The lower leagues are where the real test of a football manager’s mettle resides. The place where money’s tight. Where you beg, borrow or steal and look longingly at those in the Premier League gilded cage who barely acknowledge you exist.

 

The club have been in the same division ever since and, to put it mildly, are struggling in a way Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs would not have imagined when first hatching this plan on a train in 2012, at a time when Giggs was contemplating retirement.

 

It looked rosy for a while, with six millionaires – the Neville brothers, Scholes, David Beckham and Nicky Butt – and a billionaire, Singaporean tycoon Peter Lim, the project’s bankroller-in-chief propelling things along. But, piece by piece, the landscape has changed. Gary Neville stepped down as chief executive in 2022, handing over to Butt. Lim stepped away in August, leaving uncertainty over whether he will write off the £21million in loans he had made to the club. Last week, Butt left the chief executive’s post, declaring a wish to go back into coaching – though evidently not in Salford City’s dugout.

 

 

Salford City have been stuck League Two for the past five seasons since climbing four divisions in the first four years under their new owners

 

(L-R) Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and most recently Pete Lim have all stepped back from roles at the club

 

Karl Robinson’s side (left) have made a slow start to the new campaign and sit 18th after 11 matches

The club are seeking new investment and seem to need it badly. ‘Project 92 Ltd’, which effectively runs the club, is currently losing £80,000 to £100,000 a week, and has sustained losses of £23million over 10 years. But it looks a hard sell, with home league attendances averaging 2,800 this season and the club currently 18th, having finished last season nine points off the bottom of the EFL.

 

The Class of ’92 are still part of the picture. Scholes – head of recruitment – is around the place a lot and Giggs has been director of football for several seasons, though it only became known in March, eight months after domestic abuse charges against him were dropped.