Throughout the episodes of misfortune and grim ownership that have beset so many football clubs in recent times, it is difficult to recall a chairman being quite so damning of another as Forest Green Rovers’ Dale Vince was of the Bolton owner, Ken Anderson, this week. However dismal or destructive a regime has been perceived by fans, there has tended to be some solidarity or sympathy, at least in public, even from more responsible owners. The Football League’s new policy, that owners and directors should face sanctions for disreputable conduct, was adopted last summer after a quiet review of the rules, following outcries by supporters of several clubs.

Vince did not hold back about Anderson’s failure to pay the wages of Christian Doidge, the Forest Green forward on loan at Bolton since August, saying Anderson had taken on the contract without the money to honour it and broken all his promises. Vince said Anderson effectively told him he could not force Bolton to pay, because even if Forest Green sued and put Bolton into insolvency, Anderson has security, a charge, for any loans he has put in, while Forest Green do not, so might receive only 10p in the pound.

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Vince described Anderson publicly as “a rogue chairman, a slippery character and untrustworthy”. He told the Guardian that Anderson’s attitude to running up debt was “shocking” and “a sign of somebody who has been round the block on this kind of thing”.

Wanderers had already fallen calamitously from their 2001-12 stretch in the Premier League, and were seriously facing liquidation after 142 years, when Anderson took over. The top-flight era under the late chairman Phil Gartside, mostly managed by Sam Allardyce, had increasingly been supported by the Isle of Man-based previous owner, Eddie Davies, who made his fortune marketing the heating element in kettles. Davies finally declared in November 2015 that he had to turn the tap off, having poured in an astonishing £180m, which, with unpaid interest, he agreed to write off.

The insolvency practitioner Trevor Birch could not find anyone prepared to take on the grand club, hobbled by ongoing losses, even for £1. With Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about to wind Wanderers up for unpaid tax, the former striker Dean Holdsworth finally did, in March 2016, backed by a £4m high-interest loan. Anderson arrived late, initially as Holdsworth’s 50-50 partner; now he has 95% ownership after buying the Bolton shares in September when Holdsworth’s own company went bust.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ken Anderson assumed 95% ownership of Bolton after buying up shares when Dean Holdsworth’s company went bust. Photograph: Chris Vaughan - CameraSport/Getty Images

Anderson’s backstory was not encouraging. In September 2005 he was disqualified from being a company director for eight years after his firm Professional Sports International Ltd, and seven other of his companies, went bust. The official Insolvency Service notice stated that Anderson had failed to ensure his companies paid VAT, then failed to cooperate with liquidators. At PSI, “Mr Anderson diverted/sought to divert PSI’s funds by depositing them into a personal bank account in his own name and invoicing in the name of another connected company.”

The notice stated that the Official Receiver had obtained an arrest warrant against Anderson when he failed to appear to be examined about one company’s finances. “However the Tipstaff [court officer] was unable to arrest Mr Anderson,” it said.

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Now resident in Switzerland, Anderson was not barred by the EFL from being Bolton’s owner or director because that disqualification order was concluded in October 2013. Already certain to be relegated when he took over, under Anderson’s ownership Bolton won promotion back to the Championship immediately in 2017, and stayed up last season. He sold players, including Rob Holding, to Arsenal, and Zach Clough, to Nottingham Forest, in an effort to manage losses, but has struggled for the cashflow to ballast the club. The players went on strike briefly in the summer when their wages were not paid on time, suppliers have been left unpaid for long periods, and the EFL has imposed a transfer embargo. Yet Bolton’s accounts for the League One year, to 30 June 2017, show that Anderson was paid £525,000 in consultancy fees, and a further £125,000 consultancy fee was paid to a company owned by an Anderson family member.

With Holdsworth’s original £4m loan still needing to be repaid, in September Anderson borrowed £5m – from Eddie Davies, just days before Davies died.

The EFL’s new policy for owners and directors is intended to enable sanctions against individuals who are not barred by the narrow “fit and proper person test” due to a criminal conviction, involvement in two football club insolvencies, or a director disqualification. The policy states that “direct action” can be taken more broadly, for: “A very serious single act or persistent serious acts … where the individual’s conduct is clearly damaging to the standing and reputation of the wider profession and the game of football.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A fan’s t-shirt demonstrates the level of anger at Ken Anderson’s stewardship of Bolton. Photograph: Forest Green Rovers

Vince told the Guardian he believes that is a “fair description” of Anderson’s conduct, and the league should investigate. An EFL spokesman confirmed that the policy has been adopted, but it is understood not yet to be in force because the details of how it will work, and the necessary rules, are still being developed.

Anderson declined to speak to the Guardian: he responded to Vince’s criticism in two long statements on the club’s website, saying in the first that he found it “very disrespectful and misleading to say the least” – but he did not address the issue of Doidge’s unpaid wages.

“I will not drop to the levels that [Vince] did in his various allegations to the press as I believe it will serve no practical purpose,” Anderson said.

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The BWFC Supporters Trust wrote to the EFL on Tuesday expressing “grave concerns about the financial stability and sustainability of our club under the current ownership”, and Anderson will face protests at the home match against West Bromwich Albion on 21 January, announced by six fans’ blog sites. As yet, however, when the EFL’s historic clubs are plunged into such turmoil, its powers to intervene remain limited.