Dunfermline Athletic have avoided the immediate threat of a winding-up order after clearing their debts to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs with the aid of a fresh injection of cash from majority shareholder Gavin Masterton.
Masterton's investment, described by the East End Park club as a "further loan", has allowed the Fifers to pay off the remainder of an initial £81,000 tax bill they were unable to meet late last year, plus at least £70,000 of penalties that resulted from the arrears.
It is expected Masterton's latest investment will also allow the outstanding staff wages for December, including those of manager Jim Jefferies and his backroom team, to be brought up to date and for the PAYE and National Insurance payments due early next week to be settled.
Dunfermline – whose game with Cowdenbeath today has been called off – have been struggling with serious cash-flow problems since October, resulting in salaries for staff and players for each of the past three months being met in instalments.
A payment plan was struck with HMRC for their "historical" debts to be cleared this month, with sources suggesting that the failure to fulfil the agreement could have led to HMRC requesting a court order to impose administration or liquidation on the Fife club.
The club are now in the final stages of piecing together a share issue that, following the success of a similar scheme at Hearts in generating an investment of £1.05m, Dunfermline directors are optimistic will raise between £300,000 and £500,000. In their New Year message to supporters, the board warned of a "couple of bumpy months ahead" but they will be hopeful that paying off HMRC will at least bring the club back to a sounder footing as they attempt to see out the season.
A club spokesperson said: "Following receipt of a further loan from the Masterton family, we are pleased to advise that all historical arrears due to HMRC have now been cleared."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article