Why Bolton Wanderers Won’t Receive a Points Deduction (I hope)

As everyone knows, from a financial (and footballing) perspective, our beloved Bolton Wanderers is currently heading upstream, minus any sort of paddling device.

With the liquidation of Sports Shield BWFC, the Dean Holdsworth era has come to an end, and it isn’t likely to ever be remembered particularly fondly. Ken Anderson remains in charge as chairman, but is himself embroiled in complex negotiations with parties whom he has recently and publicly challenged to get their collective arses in gear.

All this is going on at a time when we are struggling on the field, rock bottom of the league with just two points from five (admittedly tough) games in the Championship.

When SSBWFC went into liquidation, our friends at the EFL revealed plans to review our situation and declare their findings at some point in the next month.

This led to fans flapping about fines that we could ill afford and worst of all, a points deduction.

We are lucky in a sense, that it is SSBWFC suffering this action and not the club itself. This should protect us from losing points in that it was a parent/holding company involved. For example, if the club appointed receivers then there is no question - we would be slapped with a 10 point deduction straight away.

When a parent company is involved then it’s another matter altogether, and an element of discretion is involved.

As per Football Economy, we can can take the case of Birmingham City when their parent company went into liquidation in 2015 into account when comparing with our own situation. Fortunately for Birmingham - and therefore fortunately for us, the league decided that the club would stand a much better chance of being sold quickly if there was at least a fighting chance - a sporting chance, and so the deduction was ultimately waived and the club was sold.

Bolton Wanderers in the Championship is worth a helluva lot more than Bolton Wanderers in League One, regardless of the assets that we hold.

So we are almost in September and so we will know soon enough what the EFL decides.

Let’s hope Ken has sent Shaun Harvey a nice hamper in the last few days. Either way, it’ll be a nervous time for Bolton fans.