The English Football League has given Bury until Tuesday for their owner, Steve Dale, to conclude a sale or the club will be expelled from the league after 125 years.

Dale received a takeover offer in principle on Friday night from the directors of a sporting data and analytics company, C&N Sporting Risk, including Rory Campbell, son of the former Labour party communications director Alastair.

In a statement released after the EFL board took time to consider the news yesterday afternoon, the league said it was not prepared to extend the deadline beyond Tuesday at 5pm because of the impact on the season.

In a later statement, the EFL also expressed its concern at the continued uncertainty at Bolton, giving the League One club the same deadline. The statement said: “Having been previously advised in writing on the morning of the start of the season that the deal was all but agreed and only awaiting completion signatures, there has been constant contradictory information and no finalisation of the deal.

“The current situation cannot continue and the time to resolve the current impasse is now fast running out … If a successful conclusion to a sale is not found or there are no credible plans for the Club to continue the season in administration by the planned Board meeting at 5pm on Tuesday 27 August 2019, then the EFL Board will consider lifting the suspension on the notice of withdrawal of the club’s membership of the League which was issued when the club entered into administration in May 2019.”

The EFL has suspended Bury’s first five scheduled matches in League One because of Dale’s failure, since his £1 takeover of the club in December, to provide the evidence required by league rules that he has the funding for the club to meet its commitments.

The EFL’s executive chair, Debbie Jevans, emphasised on Thursday that it will already be difficult for those five fixtures to be rescheduled given the crowded calendar of a 24-club division, hence the board’s refusal to allow any further postponement of matches for extended takeover negotiations.

In a statement made on Friday night Campbell, 32, and Henry Newman, 30, the directors of C&N Sporting Risk, said they had been in discussions for 10 weeks about buying Bury, but they needed an extension to the midnight deadline because “it is a very complicated scenario and there remain a number of outstanding legal and other issues that have to be addressed”.

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Having considered that position on Saturday morning, the EFL said in its statement: “The board has fully considered the information that has been made available by C&N Sporting Risk and, whilst no formal sale has been completed, despite reports to the contrary, enough credible information was presented to allow the board to agree to work exclusively with the club and C&N Sporting Risk over this bank holiday weekend in an attempt to finalise the change of control and achieve a positive outcome for Bury FC.

“The EFL board, however, remains firmly of the view that the League cannot be in a position whereby any more of the club’s 2019-20 fixtures will be suspended due to the integrity of the competition and the impact on other clubs in the League and therefore has stated that matters must be concluded by 5pm on Tuesday 27 August 2019.

“If in the event a successful outcome is not achieved by this point, then Bury FC’s share in the EFL will be withdrawn and its membership in the League will come to an end.”

Jevans described this extension of four days over the bank holiday as “a final effort to allow the club the opportunity to survive”.

While the extension was welcomed by Bury supporters who had reacted with increasing alarm and distress at the prospect of their club being thrown out of the league and probably folding, the four-day deadline remains challenging and many questions remain.

While Campbell, previously a technical scout and analyst at West Ham United, and Newman, a coach and former joint manager of Barnet, said they had been in discussions for 10 weeks, Dale himself had said that until Friday he has had no detailed negotiations with them. As Campbell and Newman made clear, there are layers of complexity and huge problems at Bury, and they must themselves satisfy the EFL they are “fit and proper” to take over, although they are said to have provided proof of funds to the league – and reassure Bury supporters about their competence, finance and plans.

Bury, formed in 1885, are in financial ruins, with a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) needing finance to pay “non-football creditors” 25p in the pound out of £4m they are owed, around £750,000 to current and former players and other football creditors, and expected £1.5m losses for the season. Dale has said that a further £1.75m must be paid under the CVA to a company, RCR Holdings Ltd, which bought an apparent £7m debt owed by Bury for £70,000, and now wants a quarter of the full £7m alongside other creditors.

RCR Holdings was formed two days before the club’s 18 July creditors meeting at which it voted to pass the CVA, and the sole owner and director, Kris Richards, 41, is Dale’s daughter’s partner. There is also a £3.7m mortgage on Gigg Lane taken out by the former owner Stewart Day, several of whose property companies were about to collapse when he hastily sold the club to Dale for £1 nine months ago.

The Bury North MP James Frith, who has worked intensively to find a solution for the club, criticised the EFL for granting so short a time for a deal to complete: “I fear the extension is not long enough with so much still to be done,” he said.

“Technically the EFL have narrowed and shortened the road they might have handed us. For now we must trust that the new owners and current owner work in their best interests and ours to get this over the line.”