Gillingham chairman Paul Scally believes the club could be heading for an uncertain future if he leaves.

His threat to quit remains, having become fed up with the mounting levels of abuse, but there is no buyer ready and waiting to step into his shoes.

Mr Scally was asked what the consequences could be if he leaves and he said: “I don’t know, I think we have to look at Bolton (in administration) and what’s happened there.

“I haven’t had a queue of people outside my door looking to invest or buy the club.

"It is a question of what happens to a ship if it has no skipper on the bridge. I guess eventually it crashes. It is just a question of how long it goes before it does crash.”

Mr Scally has threatened to quit before, once over a dispute with the Gillingham Independent Supporters’ Club and again following controversy over the club’s attempt to switch their home strip from blue to white.

He is no stranger to criticism but the levels have been rising of late and what happened at the final two games of the season has led him to seriously consider his position.

While fans were chanting “Scally Out” and obscenities at the Charlton home game, Mr Scally had the UK’s ambassador to Bahrain in the crowd as his special guest and two potential investors from Germany watching.

To make matters worse his father, Peter Scally, turned 96 that day.

The criticism at the final game, in Blackpool, led Mr Scally to call those fans “the lowest of society’s low” and “a form of cancer that I’m not sure I can heal”.

The chairman believes the actions of those individuals are affecting his ability to bring in potential investors.

He said: “When I bought this club I came and mixed with the crowd and listened to what they were saying and I was watching what they were doing, this was in 1995.

“Investors nowadays are no different. They will look on websites, there is probably more information to them now without actually coming to the stadium. Of course they look on social media and of course they see the negative tweets.

“It’s a decision on whether they want to come into that club on a whole variety of due diligence and other matters. Of course it has an effect. It does put me off and it does stop me doing my job.”

Just how close has Mr Scally got to securing a major financial backer?

• Lions coming to town
• Evans was in demand

He said: “Every club in the country apart from Manchester City and (a few) others, are always looking for investors.

“Charlton have been looking for a number of years and there are not actually many about. There are many people who are wannabe investors and I have had my fair share of time wasters. I have got some genuine people who are talking to genuine people, but until something happens, nothing happens.

“One thing is definite though, out of everyone I have spoken to, I haven’t come across anyone that actually wants to buy the club outright and run it, because they know it is not just about turning up on a Saturday and watching football. That is the problem.

“Most of the people that I talk to that are seemingly serious will only invest if I stay and run it and I am happy to continue to run it, because I can take it to somewhere where we haven’t yet been.”