THE strength of Football Ventures’ claim on Bolton Wanderers has come under question after it emerged the consortium has sought a loan from the PFA to repay its football creditors.

The Bolton News understands that players, protected under the football creditors’ rule, have rejected an offer to stagger repayment of back-pay, demanding 100 per cent of the money they are owed up front.

That has forced Football Ventures to reassess their ‘day one’ funding plan and a request has now been made to the players’ union to help them meet their demands immediately.

A recent administrators’ report stated the amount owed to football creditors, which also includes coaching staff, is around £2.75million.

It is understood the consortium wanted to stagger payments to players to enable them to spend more money to sign new players before the summer transfer window.

Concern over tight funding margins have followed Football Ventures around even before they emerged as preferred bidders at the start of the month.

As revealed by The Bolton News on July 3, Cheshire businessman Parminder Basran – who had been at the forefront of the takeover at one stage - resigned as a director. That was confirmed at Companies House this week but sources close to the deal insist his involvement was not deemed vital to the success of failure of the bid.

Despite being on the verge of signing a Sale and Purchase agreement to buy the club, a potential deal-breaking factor could be the Bolton Whites Hotel.

A statement released yesterday by Paul Appleton on behalf of club administrators David Rubin and Partners, underlined the importance of the hotel to Football Ventures’ plan.

“Football Ventures' ownership model, one supported by the EFL, is based on a deal for both the club and hotel.”

Appleton called for “swift action” from both Football Ventures and Quantuma, who were appointed administrators at the hotel in May, to conclude the deal.

Quantuma claim they could be six weeks away from a sale and have a number of interested parties, including ex-Nottingham Forest owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi, ex-Watford owner Laurence Bassini and a number of hotel chains.

Bolton Council are believed to favour a deal which sees the hotel and club sold together – and they have now entered into talks with Quantuma in an effort to speed up the process and ensure the deal does not collapse completely.