They confirmed that the club had cleared £1,000,000 of debt and was now debt-free, and that Bruce Winfield has bought the shareholding formerly held by the Prospect Estates group.
On 9 April, Crawley won the Conference National, beating Tamworth 3–0, and by doing this they will be a Football League club for the first time in their history.
Prior to the beginning of the season, the club spent around £600,000 on players, signing the likes of Matt Tubbs from Salisbury City, Sergio Torres from Peterborough United and Richard Brodie from York City for a non-league record fee, financed in part by anonymous Far Eastern investors.
[5] In 2017, football magazine FourFourTwo rated the Crawley Town team of the 2010–11 season the 21st most hated team of all time in British football, as a result of the club's significant financial backing and their unpopular manager Steve Evans, who was found guilty of tax evasion at his previous club Boston United.
[6] Due to the club's significant financial backing from anonymous foreign investors, they were referred to as the 'Manchester City' of non-league football.