Bury football club appeared to have been handed a narrow reprieve from threatened expulsion out of the EFL late into the night on Friday as owner Steve Dale finally agreed a deal to sell the club hours before the league’s deadline. Dale, who since his £1 takeover in December had failed to provide evidence to the EFL that he had the funds to pay Bury’s debts and fund the club for a season, said that he had agreed a sale of the club to a sports analytics company.

In a statement Rory Campbell, 32, and Henry Newman, 30, directors of that company, C & N Sporting Risk, confirmed that they had been in discussions for 10 weeks about buying Bury, and said they had asked the EFL to extend its 11.59pm deadline to allow them to further investigate the details.

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Newman and Campbell, son of the former Labour communications director Alastair Campbell, and previously a technical scout and analyst at West Ham, said: “We can confirm that over the past 10 weeks we have been in discussions with Bury FC, the EFL and others with a view to putting forward a proposal to buy the club. It is a very complicated scenario and there remain a number of outstanding legal and other issues that have to be addressed.

“Our background is in football and data analytics and it should therefore not be surprising that we are taking a very detailed forensic look at the realities of Bury FC finances.

“A club like Bury ought to have a viable long-term future even if the short-term future is clearly very challenging. To that end we have been in discussions with the EFL about an extension so that we can continue to explore the prospects for a purchase. We will be making no further comment at this stage.”

Bury’s position had come to look increasingly hopeless after the EFL suspended their first five matches of the season due to Dale’s failure to provide proof of funds, and set him the firm deadline of 11:59pm on 23 August or the club would be expelled. Debbie Jevans, the EFL’s executive chair, spoke publicly on Thursday, emphasising that the deadline would not be extended unless Dale provided the necessary evidence of funding, or that there were “deep” and “tangible” discussions for him to sell the club.

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Bury have been in a financial crisis since Dale took over in December from the former owner, property developer Stewart Day, who was facing a number of his companies collapsing into administration. Day had funded Bury’s wage bill and other costs with loans since his own takeover in 2013, and loans from one of his companies, Mederco, were revealed last month to have exceeded £7m.

Dale promised to turn the club around, but has consistently been accused of not having the money to do so. In May the players who had won promotion from League Two complained that they had not been paid since February and called on Dale to go. Most players and last season’s manager Ryan Lowe left in the summer, and several non-football staff were sacked by letters telling them the club was insolvent.

Last month Dale succeeded in having a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) approved which offered non-football creditors a quarter of £4m they were owed. Those debts will need to be paid by Campbell and Newman if they take over, as well as the players’ back wages and other “football creditors” said now to be around £750,000, and funding of expected £1.5m losses for the season. They may also want to pay off a mortgage on Gigg Lane taken out by Day with a company, Capital Bridging Finance Solutions, now said by Dale to be up to £3.7m.

Play Video 1:42 Bury FC expelled from EFL after 125 years – video report

Bury, formed in 1885, have been a member of the Football League for 125 years since their election to the Second Division in 1894, and the threatened expulsion and probable demise of the club was causing deep distress to supporters and the wider football community.

A decision on whether to grant an extension will be made on Saturday. “The EFL has this evening received notification that Steve Dale has accepted an offer from C&N Sporting Risk for the sale of Bury FC,” an EFL statement read on Friday. “We are currently in discussions with the potential purchaser and await information to allow the Board to consider a request for an extension to Friday’s deadline.”