More emphasis will be placed on racing.

By Keith Hamer, PA Sport

It was business as usual at The Sportsman on Thursday even though the new betting and gambling newspaper has been placed into administration.

The daily, launched just four months ago, will still be published while talks to obtain extra funding to secure its future continue.

"The paper has been placed into administration while talks are on-going," said communications director Ed Pownall.

"Apart from that it is business as usual.

"It means that we can carry on pretty much as usual so, fingers crossed, talks will keep going and this will resolve itself as quickly as possible.

"How long it will take I don't know but I would hope no more than a couple of weeks.

"Whether existing people are getting themselves together or whether new backers are coming in I don't know."

It is believed that The Sportsman, which currently employs 109 people, is likely to focus more on racing in a bid to boost its circulation.

"I would think it's likely we would move to be more racing orientated on the more quieter sporting days," Pownall said.

"That makes sense as we know there's a market there but until the financing is sorted it's business as usual. In the last 10 days we've led with racing because there's not been that much other sport going on.

"I think it is likely that more often than not we will be leading with racing unless there's a big football story."

The directors of its publisher, Sports Betting Media, have appointed Andrew Andronikou and Peter Kubik of UHY Hacker Young as joint administrators.