Clubs still left in limbo

ITV Digital has now gone off air

By Paul Fletcher BBC Sport Online

As ITV Digital finally comes off air, several fundamental questions remain unanswered.

BBC Sport Online canvassed the opinion of five Nationwide clubs to find out some of the answers.

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So ITV Digital has come off-the-air. Does this make any difference to the Football League clubs?

Sheffield Wednesday commercial manager Steve Chu.

I've got the groundstaff taking down the ITV Digital perimeter boards

Bury commercial boss Peter Young

"What we need is more certainty. We need to know how much of the £80m that ITV Digital are due to pay this summer we are going to get.

"We are due around £2m and we need some answers so we can sort out players' contracts and look at the possibility of bringing in new players.

"It's a case of wait and see how much money we get and, in that sense, the situation now is no different to last week."

Bury boss Preece is working on a tight budget

Bury commercial manager Peter Young.

"Since they went off air I've got the groundstaff taking down the ITV Digital perimeter boards and scrubbing their name off our steps.

"Bury were due £180,000 this summer and we are not going to get it."

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Who are the biggest losers in all this?

Scunthorpe chief executive Don Rowing.

"Scunthorpe were due to get £180,000 per annum over the next two years but Division One clubs have a bigger problem - they were due to receive around £2m each - and will have to face up to that.

"Clubs in Division One that find themselves in queer street financially need to understand that they will have to cut their cloth accordingly.

"We have had the ITV Digital money included in our budgets and addressed the problem for the next year and this is a problem all clubs will have to deal with."

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Who is to blame for all this mess?

Scunthorpe chief executive Don Rowing.

"First and foremost to renege on an agreement I find very distasteful.

"ITV Digital must have known at the outset what the downside could be if they did not get enough customers."

Bury commercial manager Peter Young.

"I think the government could have stepped in and sorted this but they have said they are not prepared to do so."

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Should the Football League have accepted a reduced payment of £75m that ITV Digital made when it became apparent they were in financial difficulty?

Jermaine Jenas was sold by Forest to raise capital

Nottingham Forest chief executive Mark Arthur.

"We are fully behind the Football League. We are waiting for what they have to say.

Swindon director Bob Holt.

"The league has had its head in the sand.

"£75m is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. We're getting sweet FA now."

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How does the news that ITV Digital is going into liquidation affect clubs already in administration?

Bury commercial manager Peter Young.

Swindon are hoping to secure their future at the County Ground

"It is a bit different for Bury as we were already in administration. You could say we were already drowning and the collapse of ITV Digital just threw more water at us.

"We go to court on Friday and hope to secure another month in administration.

"We are hopeful of putting together a rescue package over the next month so the club can come out of administration by the time the fixtures are compiled in June."

Swindon director Bob Holt.

"Basically we were more fortunate than the others. We went into administration on the same day as ITV Digital.

"We hope to secure a Companies Voluntary Agreement. It means we get tell our creditors our problems and explain how we are going to pay them back.

"If they accept this it means we start trading with a clean sheet and the loss from ITV Digital is absorbed into our repayments, which are spread over five years.

"This happened purely by accident and worked our way really."

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So will any clubs go bust or will anyone buy the newly-available license and save the day?

Scunthorpe chief executive Don Rowing.

"I would suspect anyone coming in would have the whip hand in any negotiations," said Scunthorpe chief executive Rowing.

Swindon director Bob Holt.

"Clubs are now awash with funds. There is money coming in from season tickets, new shorts, commercial deals.

"But come Christmas a lot of clubs will go broke. By then they will be out of the cup competitions and left with just their gate money."

"When the deal was announced, all of clubs thought 'lovely jubbly'.

"They were able to pay more for players and it forced players wages up because everyone was doing it.

"Now there are players on two-year deals but where will all the money come from?"