British soccer team fundraises by letting fan pay £20,000 for 10 minutes of game time

British soccer team The Macclesfield Silkmen need to raise £100,000 by the end of August, and they're employing a rather unusual fundraising method. (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

The Macclesfield Town Silkmen, a British soccer team since 1874 that's currently in the Blue Square Bet Premier of England's Football Conference, needs to raise £100,000 by the end of August to survive. One of the ways the team plans to raise funds, according to a report from The Guardian, is to offer up the opportunity for one male, ages 18-35, to pay £20,000 for 10 minutes of game time in a Conference Premier or cup match. 

The club will only consider "fit" males in that age range, according to the report, and has not disclosed how exactly it will choose the winner from the tryouts who will then pay the £20,000 for 10 minutes on the field.

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Silkmen Associate Director, Andy Scott, said he wishes the team's future didn't have to come to this kind of fundraising, calling Macclesfield's bank balance "pretty desperate," but said it could be a nice opportunity for a fan, too:

"We haven't got Manchester United's bank balance. We've got Macclesfield Town's bank balance, which is pretty desperate to say the least at the moment," the associate director Andy Scott said. "If the club was in a strong financial position, perhaps we wouldn't even consider it...I think it's a wonderful opportunity for somebody to step forward and go down in the history of English football."

Scott added however that if the game in which the winner is chosen to play turns out to be a close game, it could end up that the contestant doesn't play:

"If it's 1-1 with 10 minutes to go in a big cup game, we wouldn't even risk it. If we're 3-0 up with 10 minutes to go and [manager] John [Askey] feels as though he can put this guy on, he'll give it a go. It will be a wonderful experience for somebody."

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