Accrington Stanley chairman Ilyas Khan is bidding to fund a brand new stadium for the Reds.
The Accrington-born merchant banker, who saved the club when they were almost wound up over a £308,000 tax bill in November last year, has earmarked the area around Hyndburn Sports Centre in Church, although the plans are in their formative stages.
"There are so many things to consider - and that starts with speaking to Hyndburn Council once the plans are credible," he said. "We haven’t opened dialogue with the council yet but I will privately fund it so the council doesn’t have to pay anything.
"This is my hope and aspiration and something I feel passionate about. We have looked at sites in Accrington and the vicinity of the sports centre is just one idea as it has easy motorway access and there is land to develop on. It is obviously years in the future, but hopefully we can get this set up and it will attract at least another 500 people to come and watch Accrington, and this could help the club go from running at a loss to being a self-sufficient, vibrant well run and profitable enterprise."
Mr Khan is hoping to turn some of the money owed to him by the club into 200,000 shares - a new share issue was voted for at the last shareholders’ meeting in January. This would give him around 66 per cent of the club.
Former chairman Eric Whalley is currently registered as owning 51 per cent of the Reds’ shares at Companies House with Stanley director Dave O’Neill involved in a long-running process of buying them off him.
And, once the new share issue is resolved in the next few months, Mr Khan has said he will donate all these to a Community Trust. The first meeting about the trust was held in Accrington last Tuesday.
"I am not qualified to run a football club and I hope, by the time the stadium is built, the club will be run by a Community Trust which we are in the process of setting up," said Mr Khan.
"It is early days but we have a time limit and would like to have a structure to the Community Trust by February.
"I want to leave the running of the football club to them and concentrate all my efforts on developing and building a stadium the community can be proud of, and then donate it back to the club. The club will not pay for it."
Council leader Peter Britcliffe said: "We are always interested in meeting with Accrington Stanley.
"There hasn’t been an approach that I’m aware of at this stage but we are always ready to explore these issues with them. Any regeneration is always welcome, and of course there would have to be negotiations with the county council, which is responsible for highways."
Accrington Stanley had been at Peel Park until the club was forced to resign from the Football League in 1962, and moved to their current base, the Crown Ground, in 1968.
Fans’ spokesman Rob Russell said: "For me there’s only positives to it and if Ilyas can pull it off then you can’t lose because he’s funding it.
"The way football has gone these days it is a business and your ground needs to be fit for purpose. The big thing that Ilyas is adamant about is that he’s not building it as a legacy for Accrington Stanley per se, but as a legacy for Accrington as a whole."
But at least one fan who is against the plans is octogenarian Jack Barrett, who has been watching Stanley at the Crown Ground for the last 42 years.
Reds life president Jack said: "We’re going well, we’re improving over time and a heck of a lot of work has gone into it, so why move? Church isn’t big enough and all the traffic will be at a standstill. They should stay where they are while they grow a bit more, get some money in the bank first and not panic about moving."
