MARTIN BAIN has assured supporters that Ellis Short’s sights are set on selling Sunderland this summer and not on placing the club into administration following a second relegation in a row.

And Bain, the Black Cats’ chief executive, has moved to describe how time-consuming it is to filter out the timewasters in his bid to help facilitate a sale enabling Short to move on from Wearside.

Now that Sunderland’s fate has been confirmed, and the possibility of League One football a reality next season, efforts have been stepped up to get things sorted because uncertainty will not help preparations for the new season in August.

There have been growing suggestions of interested parties, including a consortium fronted by former Hull and Derby chief Adam Pearson, and Bain has admitted there are groups who have signed non-disclosure agreements. There is, though, nothing imminent at this stage.

Bain said: “You can imagine the number of people who pretend to have the money to buy a football club, they come forward and it ends up being a complete waste of time. So my role is to try to filter those out.

“Then where there are serious candidates, it is a case of getting one key stakeholder or investor – rather than a middleman – to have discussions with Ellis.

“Ellis knows the headline price that he would like and how those payments should be staged, and then he will hand them back to me and I will guide them through due diligence.

“That’s the point when I sit down and explain what has gone wrong in the past which has got the club to where it is, but don’t look at where it is now out of context, let me show you what a fantastic football club it can be again if A, B, C, and D are done.”

Sunderland are close to posting a fresh set of accounts and it is hoped they will have improved slightly since last April when figures showed club was £110m in debt and lost £33m.

Such huge numbers for a club in League One could put off potential buyers, Bain said: “I wouldn’t say debt is the fundamental problem, I’d say it was very much about the running costs and future financial forecasts. You have, for example, players who don’t want to be here eating up vasts amount of our budget.”

He added: “Ellis does not have any desire to put the club into administration. Ellis funds the club’s losses, I have spoken to him and he has assured me that he will continue to do so. He has told me that he will not put the club into administration.”

With a sale by no means certain before the start of the new season, Bain and manager Chris Coleman will have to work on formulating a squad for next season too – and it could be a small one if Short remains in control.

There are around 14 players likely to leave this summer just because loans are expiring or others are out of contract, but with Short reluctant to open the purse strings of a club he is looking to sell a rebuild job could be a problem.

“It’s not just about money, because I think people have asked him for money in the past without really having a plan,” said Bain. “But we will need to understand what Ellis’s appetite and desire and input is, because it is all very well me and Chris putting together a plan but ultimately we need to know Ellis’s appetite for that.

“I still have the same desire to work here, the same passion for the club, and the same desire to turn it around, but if it doesn’t change hands then everything depends on that conversation with Ellis.”

He added: “There are a few parties who are currently looking at the club in a meaningful way. I would really hope that now the club knows its position in terms of which league it will be playing in, that might give some clarity to any potential buyer to formulate their thoughts and a deal.

“I have one single priority at the moment, to try to assist a sale and help full diligence be done. We have an owner who is very actively trying to sell the club and that will be the game-changer for Sunderland. We hope a new owner comes in, will have a better financial backdrop than what there has been in recent years and will be able to provide that spark.”

A spark has been missing for a couple of years on Wearside, despite the managerial changes and the core of that has been a reluctance to invest further in the squad after years of over-spending.

Sunderland defender John O’Shea has been through highs and lows during his career and he insists he is hurting – like the other players involved last Saturday – having failed to prevent a fall into the third tier for only the second time.

O’Shea, who will assess his options at the end of the season, said: “Fans will criticise, but we care. I understand emotions are high and the passion the area has for its football club. Not so long ago we had the highs of Wembley, the highs of Chelsea and they don’t seem too far away – next thing we are in League One, so it’s totally understandable.

“My feelings are the same as Saturday – horrible, a horrible feeling. But what do you keep saying, how long do you keep feeling it? Sometime it has to stop.

“Back to back relegations is something I never thought about. At the start of the season you hope for better times, be positive and a chance to bounce back. Instead we drop down another league.

“There was a feeling of numbness on Saturday. The game was strange, one up with minutes to go and it ends in defeat. It’s all the more painful. It would have been a stay of execution if we had got the result.”