ACCRINGTON Stanley Supporters’ Fund chairman Peter Shaw believes Dave O’Neill put the club’s future in jeopardy by taking over from Eric Whalley during the summer.

O’Neill agreed to buy Whalley’s 51 per cent stake in Stanley in July, although he is yet to be officially registered as the club’s majority shareholder with Companies House because of various financial hurdles at the Crown Ground.

The local businessman, who has video production and car bodywork companies, has since brought in Marcelle Lazarus alongside him as joint chairperson but was forced to start a fund-raising campaign earlier this month to help pay off a £308,000 tax bill. A total of £90,000 has been raised so far.

The Supporters’ Fund, backed by Ilyas Khan, loaned the club £25,000 last month and have since offered to pay off the club’s entire debt if Stanley issue new shares.

Shaw says they would need an answer within two weeks if the money is to be transferred from Khan’s Hong Kong bank account in time to pay off the bill before potential winding up proceedings in the High Court on October 28.

The fund are refusing to simply buy out O’Neill because they want money to go to the club rather than any individual, and Shaw has dismissed suggestions that it might be unfair to ask him to relinquish his shareholding – just two months after taking over – without being recompensed.

“I don’t have a lot of sympathy, I’m afraid,” Shaw said of O’Neill, who was previously the club’s general manager and had already put in £100,000 before buying out Whalley.

“He had been working there for enough time to be aware of the finances and to have been able to look at the club.

“If I was him and was looking at buying the club, I would have walked away from it knowing I didn’t have enough money.

“We’re working to save the club but offering to buy him out is not a consideration for us because the money would not be going to the club.

“We’ve made it clear to the club that if they are going to take us up on our offer they would need to do so in the next one-and-a-half to two weeks because it’s not like the money is just there in a bank in Accrington. It has to be transferred from the other side of the world.

“And if I was in Dave O’Neill’s shoes I’d be thinking that offers like this don’t come along very often.”

The Supporters’ Fund still hope that cricket personality David Lloyd, a lifelong Stanley fan who has pledged to help, would be in a position to act as interim chairman should they take control.

But Lloyd is currently in South Africa as part of the Sky Sports cricket commentary team and the fund would be looking to appoint a more long-term boss in any case, with Khan’s commitments as an investment banker preventing him from running the club.