Motherwell will take a significant step towards emerging from administration tomorrow when they secure a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) with their creditors. The deal will allow the club to stay in business and repay their existing (pounds) 1.5m in claims.

Bryan Jackson, of the club's administrators PKF, has drafted a proposal which will allow each of the creditors to accept 15 pence in the pound. The nine players made redundant when the club lurched into the financial coma have been made a combined offer in the region of (pounds) 900,000, with (pounds) 300,000 owed to the Inland Revenue and a further (pounds) 150,000 to Customs and Excise.

The CVA effectively means Motherwell, who will shortly receive (pounds) 500,000 from Everton as part of the James McFadden transfer deal, could be out of administration within a month.

As yet, no firm offer has been made to buy John Boyle's majority shareholding, which is now virtually worthless. Boyle says he has no real desire to return to the helm unless there is no other alternative. The

possibility of the supporters' trust assuming outright control - they are represented on the board by Martin Rose - has already been discussed.

The administrators, who have sought assurances that the club will continue to be run frugally, have promoted the idea of a ''golf club'' template, whereby the club would be run by committee and on a non-profit-making basis, with funds raised invested immediately in facilities and squad strengthening.

l Peter Marr, the chief executive of Dundee, has insisted that a proposal to groundshare with neighbours United is far from a done deal. Administrators are exploring the idea of selling Dens Park and moving to Tannadice, and an application was submitted to the SPL yesterday, but Marr said: ''From speaking to the bank, I know that they will not be pushed into making a quick decision on the matter.

''It is right for the administrator to put in an application to the SPL because there is a deadline to meet and he has to keep all options open.

''My brother Jimmy and I do not want Dundee to go to Tannadice, and neither do the fans. I believe that the difference, financially, between going to Tannadice and not going would be very little. Grants we got to redevelop Dens would have to be handed back. Add to that the money we borrowed to build the stands, and the club would be paying out something like (pounds) 2.1m to go to Tannadice.''

Meanwhile, Fraser Gray, the Livingston administrator, has insisted that the Almondvale club's future is still far from certain, despite their CIS Insurance Cup success.

He said: ''The cup win will not, directly, aid the timing of Livingston's exit from administration. May 31 has always been a challenging deadline for a deal to be concluded.

''It does provide a welcome boost to the club's finances, and the goodwill generated will also help attract investors and, hopefully, encourage them to make a bid for the club.''