Chris Waugh assesses the financial mess that has affected Darlington FC and many other clubs.

Last week the world of sport rallied as many of us were sitting at home unwrapping our presents and stuffing our faces in the customary festive way. Darlington was a place where little yuletide joy could be found at Christmas time. The champagne that was flowing to mark the turn of the year in County Durham had a severely bitter taste, with 2012 set to be the most difficult year in the history of Darlington Football Club – and potentially its last.

The Quakers entered administration for the third time in nine years in December and their future as a club has been in question ever since. A number of players were released and allowed to move on for a fraction of their value at the beginning of January; this before interim manager Craig Liddle and all of the remaining players had their contracts terminated.

Administrators gave a deadline of 12pm on Wednesday 18th January for the club to be saved and, just as the players had been notified that Darlington FC had ceased to exist due to a breakdown in talks to save the club, Darlington FC Rescue Group managed to persuade the Administrator, Harvey Madden, that they had sufficient funds to continue the club – at least until the end of January.

Despite this temporary respite, the Quakers remain in a perilous position. Their short-term future is uncertain: they no longer have any permanent playing or coaching staff; it is unclear where funds will be found to sustain the club until the end of the season; and they continue to play in a stadium that – at full capacity – holds more supporters than many Premier League and Championship grounds.

The Darlington Arena, known as ‘The Northern Echo Darlington Arena’, can accommodate up to 25,000 seated fans. Local planning regulations have restricted that capacity to 10,000 (largely in a bid to reduce the astronomical costs of maintaining a stadium that size) but the cost of the ground has financially crippled this traditional football club.

Much of the blame for Darlington’s rapid demise must be placed at the feet of former owner George Reynolds. Reynolds’ intentions for the club, though noble, were overly ambitious and ridiculously unrealistic. The then-owner poured large sums of money into the club and was much-liked by supporters until his arrest on charges of money laundering and his subsequent bankruptcy. Reynolds had presented a vision of Darlington as a higher-Championship or lower-Premiership club and began to spend the sort of money that clubs in those lofty leagues can afford to squander.

Darlington is a town of a population of 97,000 and yet Reynolds built a stadium that would not look out of place in the Premier League. At full capacity it can hold more than Swansea City’s Liberty Stadium and QPR’s Loftus Road and just a fraction less than Fulham’s Craven Cottage and Wigan Athletic’s DW Stadium. The Darlington Arena cost £18 million to build and the majority of that was financed through high-interest loans.

What is perhaps most worrying about Darlington FC’s predicament, however, is that they are not the first club to struggle in such a way and unfortunately they are unlikely to be the last. Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Portsmouth are just a few of the established football clubs who have spent beyond their means and almost ceased to exist as a result. Many clubs have not learnt from the mistakes of others and they continue to see themselves suffer as a result.

Football has become a big-money business and, if clubs continue to over-reach themselves and spend money they simply do not have, then the sport will become even more unsustainable. Very few Football League clubs now break even and the escalating losses will force some to fold in the not too distant future.

Interestingly, many current Premier League managers would seemingly be happy if some of the clubs in the Football League were removed to make way for their ‘B’ teams. In Spain and Portugal it is normal for many of the large clubs, such as Barcelona and Real Madrid, to feature their ‘B’ teams in the lower leagues in order to try and nurture players before integrating them into their first-team.

Andre-Villas Boas recently suggested that this be introduced – although the idea was first proposed by Arsene Wenger several years ago. Even if it may help with the development of young British talent, ‘B’ teams should not be introduced in place of current clubs. England has a unique league structure in which there are a far greater number of clubs than many continental leagues contain. Clubs such as Dagenham and Redbridge or Macclesfield Town should not be demoted from the football pyramid just to accommodate the Chelsea or Arsenal reserves.

Many of England’s clubs already teeter on the brink of extinction as a result of years of financial mismanagement and the introduction of ‘B’ teams for the big clubs into the league structure would all but signal the end for many of those clubs.

Here’s to hoping that Darlington FC will not be the next name to enter into English football’s ever-expanding graveyard of clubs.