They Think It's All Over - For Palace It Very Nearly Is !

Crystal Palace Football Club are on the brink of being wound-up, but its prospective owners have appealed to new British Prime Minister David Cameron to step in and stop the club's demise.

Consortium 'CPFC 2010,' a group headed by local businessmen who want to buy the Championship club said in a statement today (Monday) that unless they can complete a deal to buy the Club by 3pm on Tuesday, the club would go into liquidation and Agilo, the hedge fund which put Palace into administration in January will sell the players to get their money back.

The sticking point has been over the purchase of Selhurst Park which is under the control of separate administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers, who are selling the ground on behalf of Bank of Scotland.

There is an issue over a clause that would see the bank receive further money if the ground was sold on in the future for something like housing.

Although a deal had appeared to be imminent, a sticking point arose because one set of administrators are working with the consortium, and another are working on behalf of the Government-owned Bank of Scotland, who own the club's Selhurst Park ground, and are its major creditor.

'CPFC 2010' have appealed to the Prime Minister, whose new coalition government is committed to sport, to step in and prevent the Bank of Scotland overseeing its demise.

A statement from 'CPFC 2010' read:

"As we sit today the future of Crystal Palace hangs in the balance and is very much in the hands of a person in a bank whom we have never met and, it seems, we are not allowed to speak to.
We note the new government's commitment to sport, particularly sport in the community. Bank of Scotland is currently government owned.
As such we would urge the new Prime Minister to intervene personally to resolve the situation or see a club supported by many thousands, and with a 100-year history, consigned to the scrapheap."

Palace's administrator Brendan Guilfoyle told Sky Sports News:

"I'm millions of pounds behind, staff weren't paid on Friday and a number were made redundant, others were asked to carry on working for nothing and it's not a situation I can allow to continue for long. So I've got to start selling players, and if I do that the indications are that the consortium 'CPFC 2010' will withdraw.
Since they are the only party willing to acquire the club then there is a distinct possibility that once I've sold the players I'll have to walk away and let the liquidation process continue."