Worcester Warriors could be saved from going into administration following an approach from a consortium led by former chief executive Jim O'Toole.

Warriors are in dialogue with HMRC over an unpaid tax bill.

"I just don't want this city without a professional rugby club," said O'Toole.

"I still have a big emotional attachment to Worcester and I just want to be able to help in some small way."

O'Toole first joined Worcester in 2015, having previously worked at London Irish, before departing in 2017.

Warriors are currently owned by financier Jason Whittingham and lawyer Colin Goldring, who took over Warriors in December 2016 - six months after being appointed as directors at English Football League side Morecambe, who are unaffected by the Warriors situation as there is no direct tie-up between the clubs.

If Warriors are forced into administration, they would be the first Premiership club to do so since Richmond in 1999 - and be forced to start the new season with an automatic 35-point penalty, in accordance with the current RFU regulations.

But O'Toole is hoping for a quick conclusion to avoid such a prospect and said his proposed consortium would "build on some of the ideas the current owners had".

"They weren't all bad ideas, by the way," he told BBC Hereford & Worcester.

"There's some great ideas in terms of using the assets at Sixways, but doing it in a slightly different way, and in a more sustainable fashion, that makes it a decent business but also a community asset."

"One of the main planks of our plan would be that a percentage of the shares would be made available to the supporters."

But one key element is that they would want the whole ground and the area around it, some of which was sold off last week by owners Whittingham and Goldring to another business owned by them, Mq Property Ltd.

"We'd want all assets," said O'Toole. "Not fragmented as they are right now."

Jim O'Toole was talking to BBC Hereford & Worcester's Andrew Easton.