You'd have though that, if either bid WAS 'on track,' they'd have taken over already by now, you know, making sure they were ready BEFORE the deadline when they could have been liquidated...
My guess is that neither bidder can satisfy the FL in terms of paying former players and making it til the end of the season, and Birch has extended the deadline a few days instead of liquidating already under the guise of giving the bidders more time to extract a few more days fees out of it.