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"That is not going to happen. We are not going to be in danger because of this.
"The thing that has been hit worst by all of this is the reputation of football itself.
"The last thing we need is for potential sponsors and investors to look at the situation and start to question the dangers of putting money into a club that is supposedly in danger of going out of business.
"That is what I am most afraid of, that is where the most damage could be done.
"The last offer from ITV was around 70% of the original deal. I still think we will get at least that amount.
"It may be that we get more than that, but it is not going to come immediately. We are not going to get everything in September, we may get some in September, some in November and some in January, which will be frustrating for some.
"But administration is not execution, this is not the end of everything. We are not losing £680,000 here.
"We are probably not going to get all of this money, but we will get some of it.
From The Times:
British football was facing its "greatest ever crisis" last night after the collapse of ITV Digital, which had provided a lifeline worth more than £100 million a year to lower division clubs.
Administrators were appointed yesterday to take control of the channel after executives failed to renegotiate its three-year deal with the Football League.
At least a dozen clubs are thought to be at immediate risk of collapse and there were predictions that many more might eventually go out of business in a "domino effect".
The announcement also casts a shadow over the future of digital terrestrial television, which unlike other multi-channnel broadcasters, does not require viewers to install a
satellite dish.
The Football League, which represents clubs outside the Premiership, yesterday finally rejected a plea from ITV Digital to accept a cash cut of almost £130 million over the next two years. The channel, which is losing up to £3 million a week having attracted only 1.26 million subscribers, was then granted permission by the High Court to be placed under Administration.
Executives admitted that if the contract could not be renegotiated the options were liquidation or sale to a new party that might not be interested in providing the same service. The channel owes £178 million under the deal to cover Nationwide League and Worthington Cup matches.
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The move into administration is designed to convince the company's suppliers, and particularly the Football League, that costs must be cut and that ITV Digital is not bluffing. The administrators, Nick Dargan and Nick Edwards of Deloitte & Touche, have to return to the High Court to report progress in two weeks. The date is not a final deadline, but it is unlikely that ITV Digital will survive if progress is not made by then. Apart from agreeing to fund the venture for "weeks rather than months", Carlton and Granada also agreed that the service would continue as normal and that none of the 1,800 staff would be sacked.
Mr Dargan said that his purpose was to establish the business, which has already cost shareholders around £900 million, as a going concern. However, the uncertainty will clearly damage government plans for the whole of Britain to be switched over to digital television by 2010. There are also fears for the future of NTL, the country's largest cable group, which has £12 billion debts and is in talks with its banks to restructure its finances. There were growing worries that it could run out of money before that could be deleted.
The Independent Television Commission emphasised last night that digital terrestrial television had an important role to play in the Britain's broadcasting ecology and was crucial to the path to switchover.
Tessa Jowell, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, said: "This is a testing time for football. I urge the Football League to keep the negotiations going. While everyone is still talking, there is hope this can be settled.
"This announcement is not the end of digital terrestrial television in the UK. I
reaffirm my strong belief in the benefits that digital television can provide to our society and the economy."
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Gordon Taylor, head of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), said that failure to reach an agreement could lead to a "doomsday" scenario. "Clubs in Division One get most of the TV money and to most lower league clubs it is life and death. It is going to mean cost-cutting and redundancies at a lower scale." He also said that many clubs had taken out massive loans to try to keep up with the bigger teams and so a number could collapse in a domino effect.
Several clubs such as Notts County, Carlisle, Northampton, Bury, Exeter, Lincoln and Swindon, which itself yesterday went into administration, have already had help from the PFA to pay players' salaries this season.
Clubs, which have increasingly relied on television money to pay the escalating salaries, will now have to start renegotiating their contracts at the end of the season, when they will also start releasing players.
They are likely to slash their playing squads and possibly scrap youth teams, leading to hundreds of players being thrown out of work. The total number of professional players in England, just over 3,500 this season, is expected to fall below 3,000 by the start of next -season.
Clubs in the danger zone
Critical
Bury
Huddersfield Town
Notts County
Sheffield Wednesday
Swindon Town
Watford
At risk
Brentford
Cambridge United
Chesterfield
Crystal Palace
Queens Park Rangers
Wrexham