THE identity of Wanderers’ mystery saviour remains a closely-guarded secret but The Bolton News can reveal the potential buyer is based in the UK.

Insiders at the club are desperately trying to prevent information from leaking out about the deal which saved them from potential liquidation at the High Court on Wednesday.

Some scant detail has emerged, however, with sources claiming the bidder is based in this country and also willing to complete due diligence as quickly as possible to remove the threat of one of Wanderers’ secured creditors putting the club into administration before another High Court hearing on April 3.

The key parties – Moonshift Investments, Ken Anderson, Michael James and Brett Warburton – are now faced with a decision on whether to try and protect the money they have tied up in the club’s assets by bringing in an administrator, or trusting the fact that a sale will go through, as suggested.

From a football perspective, EFL rules state the club has to confirm administration prior to 5pm on Thursday if they are going to accept a 12-point deduction this season rather than start next season with that as a minimum punishment.

The EFL are coming under increasing pressure to improve their own practices when approving new ownership among their member clubs.

Dr Rob Wilson, a football finance expert from Sheffield Hallam University believes more research needs to be done into potential owner’s business background.

“There are too many examples now of this test yielding bad ownership, including the Bolton case, there are countless examples of where this hasn’t gone right,” he said.

“I think the EFL need to look at their due diligence test, the PFA need to help with that and the Premier League need to probably be involved as well.

“It is clear that whatever diligence they are doing, whilst in the spirit of trying to help these clubs to find new owners, if not sufficient to protect them against this bad ownership.

“How many times have we seen in the news or heard from a football club who said that an owner has promised to come in with tens of millions of pounds and it wasn’t there.”