HEREFORD FC has launched a virtual ticket fundraising initiative to help boost income during the coronavirus crisis.

Donations cost the same as a matchday ticket and go straight towards paying for player and staff wages and bills.

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The system will be live on the club’s ticketing website on Friday.

Bulls chairman Andrew Graham said: “The board has been working hard to implement some contingency plans throughout the club in order to try to mitigate potential financial problems as much as we can.

“We are also trying hard to follow the government guidelines in relation to social distancing and have already made a number of operational changes as previously announced on the official website.

“However, as with many lower league clubs like ourselves we rely heavily on matchday ticket income and associated matchday revenues such as programme sales and club shop sales etc.

“While almost all of our revenue streams have disappeared, our core outgoings remain. We have players and staff to pay, invoices to settle, insurance, tax and utilities to cover, to name just a few.

“There are likely to be some very tough decisions to be made going forward but at the moment we are exploring many pathways in order to try to help us get through this period.

"These include, but are not limited to, the possibility of taking advantage of some of the financial assistance provided by the government, however, these pathways look unlikely to be able to cover the substantial shortfall that we look like facing.

“As you are all no doubt aware, the National League has suspended all competition until April 3 at the earliest, and although we hope that we will be able to resume football activities as soon as possible.

"As part of our worst-case contingency planning, we are working to a scenario that the league may not resume for the foreseeable future.

“Therefore we need to look to additional sources of income as soon as possible to try to help us fight through this sustained enforced period with limited income.

“We have been encouraged by the many messages of goodwill and support from fans and would like thank everyone for their kind messages.

"In response to requests from fans as to how they can help, we offer a couple of simple ways in which supporters can help us get through this extremely difficult situation.

“We appreciate that this is a tough time for everyone with a lot of uncertainty in society about what the coming days, weeks and months will bring, however, we have had many requests from supporters asking how they can help.

“The (virtual tickets) will go directly to helping our fantastic club get through this difficult time.”