NORTHWICH Victoria have been kicked out of the Football Conference for breaking finance rules.

League bosses say they will bar the club from playing in Blue Square North because they entered administration too late.

Vics have already lodged an appeal with the Football Association.

“I’ll fight for the club’s future,” said owner Jim Rushe.

“I feel we’ve been really harshly treated; the league want to boot us out using a rule that they intend to change next week because they think it’s out of date.

“Northwich Victoria’s very existence is on the line.”

He faces an FA panel in London on Monday afternoon.

The Guardian has asked the Football Conference to comment, but general manager Dennis Strudwick refused to even confirm Rushe’s version of events.

“The matter is sub-judice,” he said.

Vics have fallen foul of regulations set out in Appendix E, which covers Financial Information.

It reads: “A club will not be eligible for membership of the competition for the following season if by the second Saturday in May in the current season it shall be subject to an Insolvency Event.”

An administration order against Northwich Victoria Football Club (2004) Limited was made on May 15 – six days after the deadline.

However Rushe says that he gave notice of the club’s intention to enter administration more than a week earlier on May 6.

He says he has court papers to prove it.

Perversely, the Football Conference includes an application for administration in its list of definitions of an Insolvency Event.

Rushe, who has hired top solicitor Richard Cramer to fight Vics’ case, added: “I’ve already spent thousands of pounds putting an appeal together.

“We’re not prepared to accept a decision we believe to be grossly unfair.”

Vics, a founder member of the Football Conference, now face the prospect of playing outside the competition for the first time since its launch three decades ago.

Only last week the FA included the club in Blue Square North in its allocation of places in the non-league pyramid for next season.

It is not the first time the club have been booted out by Conference bosses.

They relegated Vics from the top flight in June 2005 after the club failed to transfer membership of the league to its current incarnation, Northwich Victoria Football Club (2004) Limited, by an agreed deadline.

Steve Burr’s men went on to win Conference North the following season to return to the national division.