Gateshead players and coaching staff threaten strike over club sale
Players and staff's statement to owner: "We have the football club at our heart and nobody wants you at Gateshead any longer."
Tuesday 2 April 2019 16:04, UK
Gateshead players and coaching staff say they will go on strike unless club owner Dr Ranjan Varghese sells the National League side.
The Gateshead squad are threatening to refuse to play against Ebbsfleet on Saturday and are reporting the situation to the FA.
The club have been kicked out of their Gateshead Stadium training base and are training at nearby Hebburn Town for free due to the club being in rent arrears to Gateshead council, who own the stadium.
Players and staff haven't been paid for March despite a promise that they'd have it by April 1.
Varghese put Gateshead up for sale for just £1 last month and a takeover deal with former Rochdale chairman Chris Dunphy was agreed in principle last week - but club owners changed their mind over the weekend.
In a joint statement to the owner, Gateshead's players and staff said: "We have the football club at our heart and nobody wants you at Gateshead any longer.
"The players, staff, fans, National League and Football Association have all made that abundantly clear. It is in everyone's best interest, including your own, to leave."
Sky Sports News understands the club's owners want a £200,000 bond back from the National League that they paid at the start of the season.
Gateshead are ninth in the National League table and just outside the play-off places, despite only having a 16-man squad and the lowest wage bill in the division.
