ILYAS Khan has warned that Accrington Stanley will not survive unless they move to a new stadium in the years to come.

Stanley have struggled financially in recent seasons and were forced to make cutbacks recently to reduce costs, with a number of staff leaving the club.

Khan, who completed his takeover of Stanley earlier this year, insists the club are currently not in danger of going out of business but says the Reds’ long-term finances are not sustainable at the Crown Ground.

The businessman has previously spoken about his hope to help finance a new stadium for the Reds in the future, believing increased facilities would help to generate more revenue for the club.

There were suggestions of aiming to move into a new £7m ground by the 2014/15 season at the club’s annual general meeting in the summer, with preliminary talks held with the council about a possible site near Hyndburn Sports Centre. It was indicated then that Khan might be willing to donate as much as £2m towards a new stadium but the Reds chairman says any development would take time to come to fruition.

Funds from Stanley’s new share issue are expected to go towards the running of the club rather than helping to finance a new home.

“We as a club cannot today, tomorrow, next week or next year afford a new stadium,” Khan said. “A new stadium will cost millions of pounds and we can’t hope to raise anything like that.

“The reason however that we can hope to get to a new ground is that with the help of the council and other people we might be able to move to a site where we can partner with a commercial entity, a builder, somebody who is in the construction industry, who would then pay for the re-development of a site where for free we might then be able to join-build.

“Now obviously that requires investment and that’s where I come in. Not the club but me, Ilyas, will put money into the development of the ground and hopefully we might be able to move.

“But there’s so many ifs along the way that I think it would be wrong for us to assume that we can achieve that in the next year or two. We cannot.

“This share issue will help make the best of what we’ve already got, but we still need to move.

“At the end of the day we will have to move somewhere. We cannot survive here. If we stay here we will not survive but that may be a few years away.”