The homemade banner swaying above the Bloomfield Road crowd captured the mood. “At least Dick Turpin wore a mask,” it declared.

Stitched by Blackpool fans, that piece of emblazoned sheeting reflected not only black humour but a consensus. Karl Oyston, the club’s chairman and his family are perceived as asset-strippers, depriving the Tangerines of the stability and prosperity which should have been the legacy of the £32m surplus generated during a season in the Premier League four years ago.

Oyston prefers to paint himself as a model of prudence who has ensured Blackpool are one of only a handful of Championship clubs turning a profit but the popular image of the chairman as a brazen 21st-century Fylde coast Highwayman refuses to disappear.

The Oystons have always done things a little differently. Whereas other owners typically start signing new players in July, Blackpool’s chairman traditionally imports a job lot during the final week of pre-season with more following throughout August. This delays first teamers’ entry on to the payroll as well as, with alternative options receding, frequently diminishing wage demands.

Blackpool’s attendant policy of recruiting on one-year contracts explain why 28 professionals departed in June, making this summer’s squad even skinnier than usual. Up until a fortnight ago José Riga, the new manager, had only eight players and no goalkeepers. A shortage of bodies forced the cancellation of a pre-season tour to Spain. Indeed, a couple of minor friendlies aside, Blackpool have barely had a pre-season.

It was not until this week that two goalkeepers finally arrived, Joe Lewis on loan from Cardiff and Elliot Parish, a free transfer from Bristol City. Parish swelled the squad to 18 players, with at least 16 expected to make Saturday’s trip to Nottingham Forest. Whether the influx are good enough for Championship survival remains a moot point.

“I didn’t know it would be so difficult,” said Riga on Friday. The 57-year-old former Standard Liège and Charlton manager was speaking publicly for the first time since being appointed in June. “It isn’t the ideal situation but I’ve never been relegated as a coach and I don’t intend to be.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blackpool pulled a pre-season tour due to a lack of players and manager José Riga expects a tough season. Photograph: Clint Hughes/Getty Images

There is no mystery as to where Blackpool’s money has gone: cash has left the club in a series of entirely legal loans through the holding company, Segesta Ltd. Segesta’s debt to Blackpool is now £23.71m and it, in turn, has distributed loans to a network of companies controlled by the Oyston family.

Zabaxe Ltd, a company wholly owned by Karl’s father, the former chairman – and convicted rapist – Owen Oyston and his wife Vicki, received an interest-free £11.5m. In Blackpool’s financial accounts for 2012-13, remuneration for the highest paid director, believed to be either Karl or Owen Oyston, jumped from £65,000 the year before to £568,000, which is £58,000 more than the club spent on transfers that season.

The Oystons claim the loans save corporation tax, are not for personal gain and can be called in. Even the one to a company whose sole shareholder was the daughter of the man whose firm provided matchday security.

Enraging the fans further, Karl Oyston’s son Sam has come to the fore, running a hotel and leisure complex attached to the club and regularly using a rather immature Twitter feed to taunt critical supporters who accuse his father of nepotism.

The Oystons’ business practices have been brought into sharp focus by an acrimonious, hugely damaging fallout between the family and the club president, Valeri Belokon. A Latvian banker, Belokon holds a 20% stake in Blackpool and claims the Oystons have siphoned off £24m from those loans, all made without his consent.

Karl Oyston has retorted with an open letter suggesting Belokon simply wants to be bought out.

If the generally popular Latvian is not quite a universal hero, his eight-year involvement has seen him underwrite the team’s rise from League One to the Premier League while helping finance the ground’s much needed refurbishment. Today, though, the current impasse dictates Belekon is no longer active in running Blackpool.

However, in an often appallingly indebted division, Blackpool, still collecting Premier League parachute payments, were £4m in the black last year – and one of only four Championship clubs in profit.

Tim Fielding, a solicitor and chairman of the Blackpool Supporters Trust, said the financial situation was “a massive concern”.

“We’re quite a realistic bunch. We never expected to be in the Premier League for too long but we thought the money we made there would finance a new training ground and give the team the ability to compete at a certain level.”

It all looked so different in 2010. When Holloway led the Championship’s lowest-paid squad into the top flight, - “it feels as if we’ve landed on the moon without a space rocket or helmet,” said the winger Brett Ormerod - Blackpool were set to generate that potentially club-transforming £32m surplus. - even if Belokon had expected that the money would not be diverted to assorted outposts of the Oyston empire in quite such labyrinthine fashion

But now, Riga’s squad still train at the dilapidated Squires Gate, a facility dubbed “a hellhole” by Holloway, whose squad washed their own kit.

“There should be a legacy from the Premier League season,” said Keith Southern, the former Tangerines midfielder now with Fleetwood. “It hasn’t happened. It breaks my heart.”

Working with a skeleton backroom, Riga and Noel Blake – the former England Under-19s manager – accept their coaching ability will be fully tested. “It’ll be difficult,” acknowledged Riga. “Everyone thinks we’ll be relegated and it’ll be tough but we’ll stay up.”

An eclectic bunch, Blackpool’s class of 2014-15 include Peter Clarke, released by Huddersfield, Costa Rica’s José Miguel Cubero and Tomasz Cywka and Jacob Mellis, both recently relegated with Barnsley.

Under Barry Ferguson, who replaced Paul Ince in January, Blackpool were extremely lucky to dodge League One last season and only the enduring chaos across the Pennines at Leeds United offers real hope that bottom place can be avoided next spring.

Karl Oyston treats such concerns with airy disdain. “I see our transfer policy as benefiting the manager,” he said. “It’s enabled him to buy his own team as opposed to picking up a squad that was overloaded and he didn’t think was good enough. It’s empowered him.

“What’s unacceptable is to pay too much for players. Sixty clubs have been in administration during my time in football. That’s unacceptable, that’s letting supporters down.”