Championship: Sports Shield consortium complete takeover of Bolton Wanderers

 

The takeover of Bolton Wanderers by the Sports Shield Consortium has been completed.

The Consortium, led by former striker Dean Holdsworth, and Inner Circle, owned by Ken Anderson, completed the £7.5m takeover after the bid was approved by the Football League earlier this week.

 Holdsworth and Anderson will both join the board,  while former owner Eddie Davies will become honorary president.

On Monday a winding up petition from HMRC was pushed back again to give Holdsworth's group more time to complete the deal. Now the takeover is complete, the club will be back in court of March 21st to address the £2.2m owed.

The club have overall debts of £172.9m, the majority of which is owed to outgoing owner Eddie Davis. Davis stated that he would be willing to write off the majority of that debt if the club could find a new buyer. 

Bolton have struggled financially in recent months, with doubts over paying player and staff wages, as well as being placed under a transfer embargo for breaching FFP rules.

They also sold their training ground to Wigan Athletic and their stadium car park in order to raise funds to keep the club going.

Neil Lennon's side are currently bottom of the Championship and 10 points adrift of safety,  with just 10 matches remaining.