Chris Dunphy's return to Rochdale AFC chairman now looks unlikely according to Richard Wild on Friday's RochdaleAFC.com podcast.

With news breaking on Friday's RochdaleAFC.com podcast that Chris Dunphy's potential return to the club seems unlikely given the lack of support he has from the major shareholders, fans remain worried at the direction of the club despite pressure from the Dale Trust to enforce an EGM in the coming weeks.

The Trust have managed to secure the support of over 50 unique shareholders, equating to approximately 25% of the total shareholding in order to push through an EGM - but according to Richard Wild's comments on the podcast, it seems highly unlikely that Chris Dunphy will be taking over again as chairman.

When news broke of Dunphy's desire to return to the club, one of the people mentioned as being involved was former club employee and current EFL official Richard Wild, who spoke to the podcast to give an update this week:

"It just really came to a head for me at the Fans' Forum. I don't know what you guys thought, but I sat there and I felt as though I was being insulted" he said.

"The morning after that I rang Francis and said 'I'm sorry but I just can't sit by and allow my football club to operate the way it has been doing' and things to do with the manager's contract that came out - I'm sorry but I class them as farcical. They should never happen."

From there, Richard and Francis went about contacting people who they felt could be trusted from a supporters' perspective.

"We said from the very outset there's only four people really who the fans, and I class myself as a fan just like you guys, there's only four people that the fans would trust to really sort this out and that's David Kilpatrick, Graham Morris, Andrew Kelly or Chris Dunphy."

"We spoke to those people and Chris at the time was the only person who was prepared to put his neck on the line and say 'I'll get back involved with the football club again'."

"We had a couple of meetings with Chris and obviously Chris is very well regarded by the majority of the supporters, but it transpired that Chris didn't have the support and doesn't have the support of the large shareholders of the football club."

"So as I stand here doing this with you, I can't see a way that Chris will be back involved with the football club. Even though an EGM will be called very shortly I would suggest, if Chris was to put his name forward to return to the football club I don't think he would or I know he wouldn't get a satisfactory number of votes to enable him to become chairman again."

In terms of what happens next, Richard did tell the podcast that the interim chairman Andrew Kelly was looking to rectify the problems at the club.

"Andrew Kelly is somebody that has the football club at heart. He was born in Rochdale, he's put his money into the football club, and I think Andrew is looking at seeking investment into the football club."

"Obviously there have been a few statements hasn't there and obviously a few names of people have been bandied about of people that were at the game on Tuesday night as potential investors. I think that's the avenue that Andrew and the club are looking to pursue at the moment."

"Hopefully we can find people who are prepared to invest in the football club. It's never really been an avenue with pursued before. We've always been reliant and generated our own income whether it's via large income from the lottery or selling players or cup runs, we've always been self-sufficient and not necessarily rely on an investor."

"So it's a slightly different route that I think the club could be potentially going down but I wish Andrew nothing but the best in hopefully sorting it out."

Listen to the episode on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3RYPIPNXyPzlL6qLCdAVwX?si=eafc862cd7784d9b

Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rochdaleafc-com-podcast/id1506914734#e

Or Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/user-296512693/episode-41-winning-at-home-a-chat-with-ric

Photo: Action Images

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