Lewes FC has issued an extraordinary appeal for £120,000 to survive the summer, warning that "the next few weeks" will shape their entire future.
The Sussex club, which became famous in 2017 as the first football club to pay their women's and men's teams equally, admitted they now face a fight to stick to that landmark commitment and even "to keep the club running".
In an open letter to supporters, the club revealed they had only "just" made it to the end of this campaign.
The crisis comes eight years after launching their pioneering "Equality FC" campaign, which sought to "put an end to the excuses for why such a deep pay disparity has persisted in our sport".
Lewes FC are facing huge bills amounting over £2million
|PA
The club's financial troubles stem from their reliance on director loans that have exceeded £2million since the equality campaign began.
Almost two-thirds of this sum was provided in 2021-22 and 2022-23 by two outgoing board members, Ed Ramsden and Charlie Dobres, who were never likely to continue bankrolling the club.
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Despite receiving a £750,000 grant via the Premier League Stadium Fund for a new pitch at their 3,000-capacity Dripping Pan stadium, the club has struggled with the costs of competing in professional women's football.
The commitment to equal budgets meant the second-tier women's team became more expensive to run than the seventh-tier men's side.
Former board member Barry Collins, who helped rescue the club in 2010, resigned in September 2019 with a scathing assessment.
"I joined a football club and feel like I'm leaving a political party," he wrote, adding that "the club has become overwhelmed by the single issue of the equality campaign."
Collins, now chair of the Lewes FC Supporters Club, told Telegraph Sport he had not been "ideologically opposed to equality" but "ideologically opposed to spending that much money that the club doesn't have".
He revealed that the women's team had become more expensive to run due to the "creeping professionalisation" in the Championship.
The club rejected a proposed takeover of the women's team by Mercury 13 as part of a £79.1 million global investment.
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Although 67.8 per cent of voting fan owners supported the deal, low turnout led to its abandonment, with the club citing that it would have contravened their "core principles of equality" by benefiting only the women's team.
Following relegation from the Women's Championship in April 2024, which cost them almost £500,000 in FA funding and television revenue, the club slashed budgets for both teams.
Board member Joe Short confirmed there were no immediate plans to abandon Equality FC, whilst Collins warned: "If you can't pay your bills, you potentially face administration or insolvency."
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