RAJ Singh, the former Darlington chairman, has been named as the businessman behind a move to save Hartlepool United.

Jeff Stelling, the club’s president, last week announced he and another investor were seeking an additional £600,000 to make a possible takeover viable.

And the club’s Supporters’ Trust, while seeking to raise £250,000 to team with with Stelling, has named Singh as the other interested party.

Singh has signed a non-disclosure agreement to prevent his identity being named public but after talking with the Trust on Monday evening, his name has been made public.

While Singh and Stelling try and come up with a plan, interest from Sweden and a potential consortium coming to the rescue remains an possibility.

In a Trust statement, their third in six days, they said: “We have been in discussions with the Jeff Stelling led consortium and we can now officially confirm that in line with online rumours Raj Singh is indeed the Teesside businessman seeking to secure the consortium ownership of HUFC.

“Mr Singh has confirmed that an offer has been made to Sage Investments to acquire the club for no fee, with Sage Investment clearing their significant debts, (and therefore without interest payments accruing) and without any security held over the club by Sage.

“A performance related payment which would total a small fraction of the money owed to Sage would be made on the club’s promotion to back to League 2 and with another similar payment should we be promoted to League 1.’’

However, a return to the Football League is some way off. Last night’s defeat at Aldershot leaves Pools three points above the National League relegation zone.

Entering administration would mean a ten-point deduction which would effectively relegate Pools.

And the National League could yet relegate Pools further down the ladder.

If Pools are liquidated, then they would have to start as a phoenix club in the Northern League – similar to what happened with Darlington following Singh’s reign.

He was willing to invest in Quakers again last year, but backed down following anger from supporters.

The HUST statement added: “There is an ongoing litigation issue within the club and without this being satisfactorily resolved then the consortium deal would not go ahead, however, those involved are confident that the matter would be closed to allow the take-over to go ahead.

“The £1.8m of funds required upfront would only be used to fund the running of the club as part of a three-year business plan, and during that time the club would need to be structured to be much more sustainable.

“HUFC is currently a loss making club, and while cost cutting can be implemented and revenue streams improved, this takes time to achieve, and is complicated by reductions in both EFL parachute payments and Academy funding over the next two seasons.

“This takeover would leave the new owners of HUFC with as clean a slate as possible, however, for the offer to proceed to the next stage then the consortium does need to find £600k to add to the £1.2m that is already in place.

“Funds raised by supporters can be used to join the consortium via the Supporters Trust to give the fans direct representation in the running of our club and we can demonstrate to other potential consortium partners that we fans are committed to football in this town.’’