Derby County have been given until February 1 to prove to the EFL they have the funds to finish the season, or they will be forced out of the league and into liquidation.
The club has been in administration since September after racking up debts of around £60M in a foolhardy bid to secure promotion. In punishment for financial rule breaches and administration, the Rams have received a 21-point deduction.
Despite the debts, potential buyers are waiting to move in but any sale has stalled because of legal claims against the club lodged by Middlesbrough and Wycombe. Meanwhile, the final days tick by.
Here, lifelong Rams fan and the managing director of Marketing Derby, John Forkin, explains how it feels to see the club he loves on the brink of extinction - and he pleads with the EFL to raise its game.
Derby County are staring into the abyss... Here lifelong fan John Forkin, who is the managing director of Marketing Derby, explains how it feels to see his club on the brink of extinction
You can change your home, change your job, even change your partner, but you can never change your football club, writes John Forkin.
For me, it was a decision taken on my behalf at birth. From that moment, I was unknowingly inducted into the life of a football fan; that dizzy cocktail of hope and joy, laced with despair.
As a Derby supporter, I have experienced all that in spades. And with my club now teetering on the brink of extinction, it is more intense than ever.
In a strange way, life as a Rams fan is as heady today as it was in a couple of crazy winter weeks back in 1975.
The club was a founder member of the Football League, but now feels abandoned by the EFL
In those glory days, on a chilly Wednesday in late October, I packed into the old Baseball Ground with 34,838 other souls and saw my heroes dismantle the mighty Real Madrid 4-1 in the European Cup.
As a 15-year-old boy, I thought this was normal! How little I knew about the beautiful game. A fortnight later, we lost 5-1 at the Bernabeu in front of 120,000 joyful Spaniards and we were out of the European Cup.
You might think that is all a long way from where we are now, mired in administration, gasping for survival, begging for a few quid to keep the lights on and players playing?
But it isn't, actually. The history of a football club runs through supporters, from one generation to the next. The present and the memories mix together in a golden thread that ties a city or town together.
Glory Days... Derby County beat Real Madrid 4-1 at the Baseball Ground in October 1975
Francis Lee was upended in the box by Real's Jose Antonio Camacho (r) to win a penalty
It doesn't matter how much time has passed, or even what division you are in; when your team is winning it is the same elation that carries you and every other fan away. It is the same togetherness that spreads out from the football stadium and excites the city.
The hope and joy of our supporters revelling in the herculean effort of Wayne Rooney's Great Escape is as intense now as it was in 1975, when Charlie George smashed three past Los Blancos and did us proud.
That cup run may have ended in despair, but this battle for the survival of Derby County is one we simply must win.
The English Football League has threatened to expel this grand old club, to be banished into liquidation, on February 1, just 10 days from now.
The epitaph will read 'Derby County; born in 1884, died in 2022'.
Derby was one of the first 12 clubs in the world when we were part of the creation of the Football League in 1888.
Today, there is fear that the league, in some mad act of parricide [the killing of a relative] is in danger of killing us and in so doing, it will bury the club's 138 years of history.
Derby County, four times FA Cup finalists, winners in 1946, champions of England in 1972 and 1975, European Cup semi-finalist... gone.
The reality of liquidation is beginning to dawn. Our fans now realise that disappearance can actually happen. But a football club is the heartbeat of families, and also communities. Derby without Derby County is simply unthinkable.
Derby is a city of hard workers, who have spent decades of their spare time on a Saturday afternoon or midweek cheering - or cursing - the Rams. And then spent the rest of their time talking about it.
Charlie George hit a hat trick against Real Madrid, he is pictured scoring the opener
Derby is a true football city, where we design Rolls-Royce aero engines, build trains, make cars. We are the same as scores of other football towns and cities and fans all over England must see themselves in us.
However, our club has made mistakes and we are paying the price now mired in the purgatory of administration.. We will no longer be a home to football if the EFL and administrators fail to broker a solution which meets the needs of potential buyers of the club who are ready and waiting.
This cannot proceed without some settlement to the differences with Middlesbrough and Wycombe, who have lodged
