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MADRID, May 21 (Xinhua) -- The Charles Dickens character Mr Micawber had a famous saying regarding looking after one's personal accounts.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery," he said in the book David Copperfield, Mr Micawber, however, never lived in Spain, otherwise he may have felt differently.

Eibar is a town of under 30,000 inhabitants midway between the cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian in the Basque Region in the north of Spain.

The town's football team, SD Eibar has never played in the top flight of Spanish football and their Ipurua Stadium has capacity for just over 6,000 fans. This year their average attendance this season is around 3,500.

Last season saw Eibar win promotion to the Liga Adelante (the Spanish Second Division) and under coach Gaizka Garitano, this season has been even better. If they beat local rivals Alaves this weekend, while Las Palmas and Murcia fail to win their respective matches, Eibar will be promoted to the Primera Liga for the first time in their history and with two games left to play.

However, there is a problem and as the club president Alex Aranzabal explained to Xinhua, they could pay the price for their success, not with promotion to the BBVA Primera Liga, but with relegation to the third tier of the Spanish game.

"There is a law which states that a club needs to have a minimum amount of capital. We think that is unjust as a club's solvency has nothing to do with the amount of capital they have. We have no debts and we have a very healthy," he explained.

This law: the Royal Decree, 1251/1999 says every team in the Second Division or above must have a capital equal to 25 percent of the average expenses of all the teams in the Second Division.

This is a massive problem for Eibar who have a capital of just 400,000 euros (550,000 US dollars). In order to survive, the club needs to bring itself in line with much bigger clubs such as Zaragoza, Deportivo La Coruna, Murcia or Sporting Gijon.

It doesn't matter that despite having the smallest budget in the second division Eibar are run at a profit, the choice is stark:

"Between now and the 6th of August we need to find an amplification of capital of 1,700,000 Euros," explained Aranzabal.

In order to save the club, Eibar has organized a massive issue of 34,486 shares, each of which is valued at 50 euros each through the club website (www.defiendeeleibar.com).

"You may say it doesn't sound much, but because of the idiosyncrasy of the club, which has always had a lot of small shareholders, that makes it complicated. So we are trying to explain that we need help and that we also represent a different way of understanding football."

So far the club has sold around a third of the shares needed to ensure its survival, but in an attempt to gain further publicity SD Eibar organized an event in Madrid, which was attended by Real Madrid's Xabi Alonso, who spent time on loan at the club as a youngster (as did Manchester City's David Silva), Real Madrid' s Asier Illaramendi was also in attendance along with Getafe defender Rafa Garcia, another who enjoyed a spell playing at Ipurua.

Meanwhile Eibar has to raise an average of 15,000 euros a day in order to reach their target and not pay the price of their success.... What would Mr Micawber say?