New owner for Bolton Wanderers could be confirmed within days
The former owner of Watford has said he is very close to taking over at struggling Bolton Wanderers.
Laurence Bassini said he is “very close” to taking over at the club which was in the High Court last week over an unpaid tax bill.
The club has been struggling to pay its staff and there were fears that this weekend’s game with Ipswich Town would not go ahead due to a critical IT failure.
Mr Bassini said: “Two or three things need to be checked, but we’re very close in this coming week.”
He added that fans could “feel safe” with him as the club’s owner.
He said: “Bolton are a great, great club. I looked at them a couple of years ago – they’re just a great club, they deserve more. They have the potential to return to the top.
“I don’t know whether we’ll survive this season – if we do go down we’ll be putting a large sum of money in to take them straight back up.
“If they go down it’s a three-year plan, if they stay up it’s a two-year plan to get in the Premier League.”
Bassini took over at Vicarage Road in 2011 before selling to the Pozzo family a year later.
This week players refused to train for 48 hours when staff were not paid their salaries on time for the second month in a row.
The hearing in the High Court was adjourned until May 8th.
The Ipswich game, as well as next week’s fixture against Middlesbrough, was eventually given the go-ahead following a meeting of the region’s Safety Advisory Group.
