London (AFP) – Historic English football club Leyton Orient avoided being wound up on Monday when the Registrar hearing the case dismissed all the bids seeking such a judgement.
Orient — whose 112-year stay in the English football league ended in April with relegation from League Two — has had a turbulent time under controversial Italian owner Francesco Becchetti.
Becchetti — who bought the club from snooker supremo Barry Hearn prior to the 2014/15 campaign — had been given till Monday by a judge at a previous hearing in March to pay off outstanding debts.
A lawyer representing Orient told Registrar Sally Barber all debts had been paid at a Bankruptcy & Companies Court hearing in London and she dismissed all bids to have the club wound up.
Fans were pleased that winding-up bids had been dismissed but said more problems could be around the corner.
Mat Roper, a board member at the Leyton Orient Fans’ Trust, said he knew of other people still owed money.
“We could well be back again in a few weeks,” said Roper.
“It’s a long, hard road being an Orient fan.”
Roper said many fans wanted Becchetti to sell the club.
“He came in 2014 and overspent,” Roper said. “Since then it has been a catalogue of problems.”
It reflects a dramatic fall from grace as two years ago they came within a penalty shootout success of gaining promotion to the Championship, losing in the play-off final to Rotherham.
However, it has been downhill all the way since.
Orient, who enjoyed just one season of top-tier football in the 1962/63 season, were subsequently relegated to League Two.
Last season’s campaign saw a series of disasters with five managers, unpaid wages and then the winding up order against Becchetti.
