Fans asked to plug Pirates debt

Dicky Evans hopes fans will part with as much as �5,000 to help the Pirates

National One side Cornish Pirates are set to ask fans to help plug the club's �300,000 funding shortfall.

At a meeting next week the club's millionaire former president Dicky Evans will ask fans to take part in a new scheme to try and fund the club.

In a statement Evans said the club costs around �1.8m to run every season, with Evans plugging a shortfall of around �300,000 for 2008/09.

Under the plans small numbers of fans would invest either �5,000 or �2,000.

Those fans would then become shareholders of the club should it ever float as limited public offering.

Fans have been invited to a meeting at St John's Hall in Penzance on Monday, 19 January, where Evans will outline his plans further.

This is a challenge we must face head on or basically put out the lights and enter community rugby

Former Cornish Pirates president Dicky Evans

"There is a huge deficit between income from all sources and the cost of running a full-time rugby club in the far South West," Evans said in the statement on the club website.

"We might be a nice area of the world but being remote makes it difficult to attract players especially any on loan from Premier clubs," he added.

The Pirates' aim is to play in the new professional second tier of English rugby, to be known as the Championship, from the start of next season.

But Evans says the funding for clubs from the Rugby Football Union, which will only slightly increase from what they get now as National One sides, is not enough.

Cornish Pirates funding proposals

Twenty two fans each donating �5,000 per season who would get "exclusive" club information and have a say in the day-to-day running of the club

One hundred or more fans donating �2,000 per season who would get "special benefits" from the club and meet with directors at least twice a year

"The deal on the table from the RFU is far from a business proposition that I would enter into in normal circumstances...and doesn't compare with the elite clubs support, we are left with little choice but to enter the unknown," he said.

But Evans, who has backed the Penzance-based club since 1996, says there is no other choice for the Pirates but to try and be successful in the new league.

"This is a challenge we must face head on or basically put out the lights and enter community rugby.

"It will no doubt bring an even higher standard of rugby to Cornwall, of that there is no doubt, particularly if we can manage a top-four finish.

"At least the Cornish Pirates have ensured that the last 13 years of massive investment in time and money has not been wasted and we will be on the starting line for this new era."