'No problems foreseen' from EFL meeting - Wigan Athletic administrator

The administrators met with the governing body on Wednesday with little over a week to go before the start of the new EFL campaign.

Latics are still looking for a buyer, having been in administration since July 1, and with more than half of last season's playing staff - and boss Paul Cook - moving on.

But Krasner insists there's enough positive movement - despite one of the frontrunners, Norman Smurthwaite, pulling out yesterday - to suggest they will be given the green light to start 2020/21.

"We as the administrators need the blessing of the EFL to start the season," he told the Wigan Post.

"It went well, the meeting, and I'm not foreseeing any problems.

"I would be amazed if they did come back with a problem.

"We updated them where we are on the bidding, we told them we are confident we'll get a bid that we can actually get over the line, and we can start the season.

"We put the case that if we didn't have a bidder that we were confident about, we wouldn't be asking. It would have been the end.

"But we are confident about this.

"There's no evidence we can give them in writing, but we are officers of the court, we're not going to lie - despite what some of the fans may think."

When asked whether the American-led consortium - fronted by Oostende CEO Gauthier Ganaye - was now in pole position, Krasner added: "I'm not commenting on that.

"But I haven't got just one iron in the fire, put it that way.

"And I'm not holding anybody up, everybody's getting the same information.

"Every bidder has been told why we need to do this, and where we are.

"It's just a case of everybody putting their hands in their pockets if they want this.

"Some of the people who I'm not even including as a bidder are coming to us with their fourth different consortium.

"Well, you lose heart after the first one, let alone the third one.

"I've got an inner ring of bidders and an outer ring of interested parties."

Latics kick-off the season this weekend in the first round of the Carabao Cup at Fleetwood, and Krasner says off-field events will have no bearing on matters on-the-pitch.

"I'm going to put a team out until somebody tells me I can't," he said.