A Moray Highland League club has been served with a winding-up order over a huge unpaid tax bill.
Rothes FC is understood to owe HM Revenue and Customs as much as £30,000.
Last night fears were raised about the club’s future as officials past and present said they were shocked to learn its finances were in such a dire state.
But its chairman was adamant the club would be ready for the new season “and beyond” and said he was confident the money would be found t0 pay the outstanding tax.
HM Revenue and Customs applied for a winding-up order at Elgin Sheriff Court.
If its application was supported the club could be put into liquidation and its assets sold to clear debts.
The Mackessack Park club’s chairman, Robbie Thomson, said last night: “It’s currently a tax issue, but at the moment we have no figures, and we are working on it.
“We are not panicking. We don’t know how much we are having to pay and how long we will have to pay it back.
“We have to go back to speak to the solicitors again because we are at a very early stage.”
Mr Thomson, whose wife Anne is the club’s treasurer, said he was confident of getting things right off the field to allow the club to focus on its first game at home to Fort William in the opening round of the North of Scotland cup on July 18.
He added: “We will be there. Not just for the first game either, we will be there for the whole season.
“We will manage to raise the money. We have been in a situation like this before, and the Thomson family itself has put a lot of money into the club before.
“We fight every single day for this football club. We will ensure the club’s future again. We own our own ground and there is a lot of clubs in a worse state than we are.”
Rab Mulheron, the Speysiders’ vice-chairman and director of football, said: “I am totally stunned. I had no knowledge of this whatsoever, as nobody has mentioned this to me. I am absolutely flabbergasted.”
Rothes FC’s former chief executive, accountant Brian Cameron, was on the club’s board for several seasons up until 2008-2009.
He said: “I don’t know much money Rothes owe HMRC, but when I heard about this I was absolutely shocked and upset that the first anybody in the community had heard about the situation was by rumour.
“It looks very much as if heads have been buried in the sand. I am concerned as to how far this situation has been allowed to progress, hopefully it hasn’t been allowed to got too far.”
One fan said: “There is deep concerns at the continuing committee running the club without producing accounts or holding an AGM for the club’s members made up of its season ticket holders.”
Yesterday, the Scottish Football Association confirmed Rothes FC holds a club licence, meaning the club had followed the requirement to have submitted a set of accounts to the game’s governing body in April.
An HMRC spokesman said: “HMRC does not comment on identifiable taxpayers.”
It is believed the club may arrange a public meeting in the Speyside town in the coming weeks to discuss how the club moves forward.
Rothes FC
Rothes Football Club was founded in 1938.
They own their 1,731-capacity ground, Mackessack Park, which was named after Major Douglas Mackessack, the great-grandson of the founder of nearby Glen Grant distillery.
The Major donated the land and the original grandstand to the club at the time of their inception.
Last season, Rothes finished three points adrift at the foot of the Highland League table after collecting just 11 points from 34 games.
They last lifted silverware in the 1978-79 season, winning the North of Scotland Cup, and have only won the Highland League title once, in the 1958-59 season, under the captaincy of former Stirling Albion player Tommy Martin.
The club’s most famous player was former Hearts and Stirling Albion centre forward, “King” Willie Grant.
During the Speysiders’ league-winning season, he scored 27 goals in 32 appearances.
He went on to score an astonishing 348 goals in 255 games for Elgin City, and more than 450 goals during his long playing career in the north with City, Inverness Thistle and Rothes.