Wigan

[IanMcL]

I wonder who actually paid the money, for the sell on, in HK?

Sounds like banks will be the losers and someone will pick up the assets for a HK dollar and go again!

Unfortunately, the clubs current creditors, inc the players, will also lose out.

So many bad, foreign (particularly betting related) outcomes.

[mikeS]

Rod Liddle Wrote a decent piece about Wigin yesterday. The unknown owners behind them would concern any football fan. Hopefully their predicament never happens here.

[ClaretTony]

Of all the concerns over recent years about owners at various football clubs this one has to be just about the most bizarre of the lot.

[Longsidelenny1882]

Scandalous

[bfcjg]

As has been alluded to on this thread those who crave foreign owners need a reality check. Just think why would somebody want to pump millions into Burnley year in year out with no return ? Id sooner be in the championship owned by Clarets then have one season in the sun and then to be sold like a second hand car.

[ElectroClaret]

...why would somebody want to pump millions into Burnley year in year out with no return ?

Good question.

And isn't that what's happening down Ewood?
Don't ask me why, though.

[Chester Perry]

Fans are demanding that the EFL undertake a proper investigation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53309675

[claptrappers_union]

Interesting how the BBC article doesn't include any of the information that has been linked in this thread

[ecc]

"Of all the concerns over recent years about owners at various football clubs this one has to be just about the most bizarre of the lot."

And that is a very frightening thought.

[randomclaret2]

Nixon reporting that their highly rated Left Back Antonee Robinson , who was close to a £10m move to AC Milan in January , has a contract clause allowing him to leave for £1.5m if theyre relegated

[Chester Perry]

couple of bits of news on the BBC

Posted at 11:5011:50
Wigan Warriors owners to bid to buy Wigan Athletic
The owners of Super League side Wigan Warriors are leading a bid to buy Wigan Athletic.

In a statement on the club's website, Warriors chairman Ian Lenagan confirmed he had spoken to Wigan Athletic's administrators and external parties with a view of attracting further investment.

"We strongly believe that Wigan Athletic is better being locally-owned. As sustainability and ownership of the stadium is equally important to both clubs.

"Our intention is to identify other investors quickly and start due diligence on the football club with the intention of making a bid in due course. We have made the administrators aware of our interest and hope to explore this with them further over the days ahead.

"Wigan Warriors and Wigan Athletic are both local sporting institutions and it is our belief that this is a unique opportunity here to bring the ownership of these two great clubs together under one roof, each operating independently as before, but under a Wigan Sporting Partnership banner."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted at 11:4111:41
Wigan appeal against 12-point deduction

Simon Stone

BBC Sport

Wigan administrator Gerald Krasner has confirmed the club has appealed against its 12-point deduction for going into administration.

The Football League confirmed last week the punishment would apply this season if Wigan avoided finishing in the bottom three.

“The only grounds we have for this is ‘force majeure’,” said Krasner.

“My reading of it is that applied to anything outside what we could have expected. This situation was totally unexpected, so we believe in the case of Wigan this case applies.”

Krasner confirmed 75 support staff were made redundant on Monday and that senior club executives have agreed to work for nothing until the situation is resolved.

He also said all furloughed staff were being paid in full today, with the first-team squad getting 20% of their salaries.

Krasner also revealed he has now sent out 50 non-disclosure agreements and that final offers for the club should be made by 21 July.

“That shows the level of initial interest. From expressions of interest we have received, we would normally expect between three and five concrete bids.”

[conyoviejo]

Wigan trying the act of God way out to stay in the league .Id dock em 20 points this season and another twelve next season .. Cheeky gits.

Wigan Warriors are looking for investors to help them buy the stadium ..

[kritichris]

I wonder of the Wigan Warriors interest is a ploy to just take over the ground.

[conyoviejo]

I wonder of the Wigan Warriors interest is a ploy to just take over the ground.

I certainly hope so after the way the football team treated them a few years ago.. The further Wigan Athletic sink the better for me..

[GodIsADeeJay81]

How much interest can there really be in Wigan?

They don't have much going for them do they?

[Chester Perry]

Wigan Today with a brief exclusive comment from the owner - it is nonsense of course given th understanding we had of the world by June 4th 2020

Exclusive: Wigan Athletic owner Au Yeung Wai Kay defends 'difficult' administration decision
Au Yeung Wai Kay insists Next Leader Fund LP had the 'best intentions' when taking charge of Wigan Athletic - despite the club being placed into administration less than a month later.
By Paul Kendrick
Tuesday, 7th July 2020, 5:56 pm

The club's administrators have written to the UK lawyers of owner Au Yeung, asking him to be interviewed in regard to the circumstances which led to the crisis at Wigan.

Au Yeung's Next Leader Fund took formal control of the Championship side on June 4. Twenty days later his legal representatives in the UK set in motion the process to appoint administrators, which was confirmed on July 1.

The move has wreaked sporting and financial havoc on the club. They face a 12-point penalty for entering administration, which administrators confirmed on Tuesday they have appealed against.

All sorts of theories have been posited as to why the owner took the decision he did, but he says the financial impact of the Covid-19 outbreak was to blame.

"Wigan Athletic is a wonderful football club with rich history and a passionate fanbase," Au Yeung said, in a statement exclusively released to Wigan Today.

"We bought Wigan Athletic with the best intentions: to create a team that would get the club back into the Premier League, and I have invested more than £40million (to buy it and repay a loan to former owners the International Entertainment Corporation).

"Unfortunately, the Covid-19 crisis has severely impacted people and businesses around the world - and Championship football clubs, which rely on fans coming through the turnstiles, are no exception.

"This has fundamentally undermined our ability to fund Wigan Athletic and, after struggling to find a solution, in the end took the difficult decision to put the club into administration to ensure its survival.

"The administrators are now doing everything they can to find a new owner who will secure the future of Wigan Athletic for the sake of the many thousands of devoted Latics fans, and the local community."

Off the pitch, 75 redundancies have been made so far among football and general support staff. The UK-based directors, chief executive Jonathan Jackson and executive chairman Darren Royle, have also been made redundant but are working for free to assist with selling the club.

Joint administrator Gerald Krasner said he and his partners had gathered some information regarding the events which led up to administration, but now wanted to hear from Au Yeung.

"Earlier today the administrators approved a letter from our solicitor to go to the owner's solicitor," Krasner said.

"That sets out a number of matters that we want clarifying and it invites the owner, if he will, to come to a Zoom meeting with us, with his lawyers if he wishes, so we can get the facts from his side as to the events leading up to administration and then compare them to the events that we've been told about, and see whether they agree or if there is a difference.

"I am hopeful that although I have no powers to force him to come to an interview, he would want to do his best for the football club, and with some gentle persuasion will agree to that interview."

Krasner would not comment on whether there would be a police investigation into the circumstances around the administration process, but said if there was it would not hinder the sale of the club.

He said that as of 11am on Tuesday morning 50 non-disclosure agreements had been sent out, and three of them had been returned with proof of funds of £10million. The administrators hope to settle on a preferred bidder by July 21.

"The investigation is completely distinct from the sale," he said.

"I have told the people I have spoken to that have put the proof of funds in that whatever comes out of the investigation will not impact any sale."

Players have received 20 per cent of their pay, with administrators hoping to find the remaining 80 per cent via player sales. To that end, the club have appointed an agent to attract buyers, but were at pains to point out that the agent would not be paid by Wigan.

On the appeal, Krasner pointed out no club had ever successfully challenged the 12-point penalty for entering administration, which would be applied this season if the club stay in the Championship or to next season's table if they are relegated.

He said the administrators were also working on a strategy to ensure the club would not be liable to a further 15-point deduction for failing to pay creditors 25p in the pound.

Joint administrator Paul Stanley said the official supporters' club had raised £125,000 by Tuesday morning to cover the costs of travelling to away games and staging home games "even down to putting petrol in the lawnmowers to get the pitches mowed".

The administrators said a local firm, Eavesway Travel, had agreed to cover the cost of getting the first team to their away fixture against Barnsley on Saturday.

[Chester Perry]

the EFL have released an official Statement re the Wigan situation


The EFL continues to note the many comments and concerns in respect of the recent developments at Wigan Athletic Football Club from supporters, media and public figures.

Given the Club’s standing within the EFL and their local community there is, quite rightly, a significant strength of feeling of anger and frustration amongst all those connected to the Club.

The EFL has engaged with the Administrators and their advisors and is continuing to provide its full support in all ongoing matters, particularly how it can work through the requirements of the insolvency policy and assist the Club in exiting Administration at the earliest opportunity. In the short-term, those discussions will continue with the sale of the Club, player transfers and funding required in order to complete the 2019/20 season the immediate priorities.

In addition, we will also engage with the appropriate supporter groups, local politicians and other key stakeholders as appropriate to assist in helping achieve a long-term stable future for the Club and its local community.

The League fundamentally disagrees with the comments attributed earlier today to Mr Au Yeung Wai Kay where he stated that ‘the Covid-19 pandemic has undermined the ability to fund the Club’. Whilst it is clear that Covid-19 has undoubtedly presented significant financial challenges to the professional game, evidence of the required source and sufficiency of funding to be invested in or otherwise made available to the Club, was provided as part of the recent change of control process.

This set of circumstances is more illustrative of the wider financial challenges facing EFL Clubs, who, without a full and comprehensive reset of football’s finances, including how monies are distributed throughout the game, will continue to struggle to meet the demands of an outdated and unsustainable model.

In respect of the challenges at Wigan Athletic, there is clearly a number of important unanswered questions that require urgent attention and the EFL welcomes the move made by the Administrators to launch an investigation as to what has led to the Club being placed into Administration just a matter of weeks after the Next Leader Fund (NLF) took ownership of the Club. The EFL will undertake a similar exercise and, should any breaches of football regulations or company law be discovered, action will be taken either by the League or the body with the relevant jurisdiction to do so.

The EFL understands this situation once again leads to questions being asked about EFL regulations in regard to changes of control, alongside the actions taken when an insolvency event occurs, and as a result has opted to clarify each matter below:

EFL Insolvency Policy

In all circumstances a sporting sanction applies in respect of an insolvency event (default 12-point penalty). The Regulation seeks to ensure that a Club cannot gain any advantage over other Clubs in the competition by not paying its creditors in full and on time, while also ensuring there is a deterrent in place for Clubs and their owners, from operating in a manner so as to cause insolvency. The EFL acknowledges it is a difficult time for any Club placed into Administration, particularly in the midst of COVID-19, but is mindful that its regulations are to be applied consistently and equally to all member Clubs irrespective of the circumstances.

In the current case of Wigan Athletic, and, in accordance with EFL regulations, due to the Club being placed into administration after the fourth Thursday in March, the sporting sanction will take affect once the final League positions are known. If in the event the Club is relegated by virtue of their final position following the conclusion of the Championship season, then the deduction will apply in League One in 2020/21. However, if the Club is not in the relegation places following the final game of season, the sanction will be then be applied to their season 2019/20 total and final league standings amended as appropriate.

A Club can appeal against a decision of the Board to impose a 12-point deduction under the EFL Regulation 12.3.10, and the appeal will be heard by an independent panel appointed by Sports Resolutions. That independent panel will determine whether the relevant Insolvency Event(s) arose

solely as a result of a Force Majeure event, caused by and resulted directly from circumstances, other than normal business risks, over which the Club could not reasonably be expected to have controlled.

Owners’ and Directors’ Test

Under EFL Regulations, it is a requirement that the self-certification Owners’ and Directors’ Test is completed by every prospective new owner and relevant person seeking to gain control of a Club. The test sets out an objective set of Disqualifying Conditions. This process was completed during the recent change of control at Wigan Athletic, and Mr Au Yeung Wai Kay was not subject to any disqualifying conditions.

As previously stated, the EFL is aware of the public frustrations felt in respect to the current Owners’ and Directors’ Test and acknowledges that there is a requirement for ongoing adaptation and improvement but, from a legal perspective, it can only operate within existing parameters.

In 2018 the EFL conducted an Owners’ Conduct Review, which in part looked at making a number of fundamental changes to the criteria and whilst some amendments were made at the time, it is clear that the appetite has been strengthened by the circumstances that led to the withdrawal of Bury FC from the League, and the lessons learned from the subsequent review into the conditions that led the Club to that position. The EFL has been engaged and remains in ongoing consultation with both the Premier League and The FA to achieve the appropriate improvements to the Owners’ and Directors’ Test for the future.

[Chester Perry]

Long read in the Telegraph and looks like the administrators are planning a fire sale of the squad

How Wigan Athletic's fairytale unraveled to leave the club fighting for its existence
JAMES DUCKER JULY 08, 2020

If Au Yeung Wai Kay had sought to throw Wigan Athletic’s staff off the scent, he certainly succeeded in that. It was only a week before the Championship club was officially put into administration that the owner was signing off costly transfer deals and new contracts it would appear he actually had little intention of funding.

The 32-year-old striker, Joe Garner, got a new one-year deal worth at least £4,000 a week on the same day the Nigeria defender Leon Balogun, also 32, was signed from Brighton & Hove Albion on a short-term contract worth an eye-watering £13,000 a week. Around the same time, the green light was given to pursue a deal for the Sweden forward, Muamer Tankovic, his reputed £15,000 a week wages apparently no obstacle. Paul Cook, the Wigan manager, and his recruitment team must have been rubbing their hands with glee, confident they had an owner who was prepared to back their judgement, do everything to avert relegation and ensure a smooth transition following the club’s sale by International Entertainment Corporation in late May.

Wigan’s locally based executives probably felt similarly enthused. A fortnight or so ago, some of them were walking around the DW Stadium discussing plans to expand the club’s infrastructure with the owner’s eyes and ears on the ground, Szeto Man Chun busily scribbling ideas into a notebook as they talked. Recruited last November as a “football consultant” by IEC - the Hong Kong-based consortium from whom Au Yeung bought Wigan on May 29 - Szeto’s title seemed a little lofty for a man who appeared to serve predominantly as a translator and gofer for his paymasters. Nonetheless, the 45-year-old former Hong Kong midfielder, who played 45 times for his national team, was listed as a club director and had a direct line of communication to the owner.

And yet, by Sunday, Szeto was back in Hong Kong, nowhere to be seen, albeit not quite as elusive as the mysterious Au Yeung. Szeto was still fielding the odd call from 6,000 miles away, reputedly telling those staff wanting answers that administration was “best for the club” right now. No prizes for guessing how that went down at the other end of the line. Still, whether or not Szeto knew what Au Yeung was planning, he is in no way to blame for the owner’s actions and, if anything, just one of the strange footnotes in this modern day football tragedy. “If we weren’t all crying, you’d have to laugh the situation is so ridiculous,” one source at the club said.

Even by the standards of a club that has endured some extraordinary highs and lows, the events of the past week have taken some digesting. The glory days of 2005, when former owner Dave Whelan’s decade long dream of turning Wigan into a Premier League club was realised, and 2013, when the club produced one of the great shocks to beat moneybags Manchester City in the FA Cup final at Wembley, are long gone. But Wigan are still a club with plenty going for it - they own their own stadium and training ground, have a thriving Category 2 academy and possess a first team squad containing an estimated £30 million worth of talent. Sure, the wage bill - which stood at £19.4m as of June last year - is excessive for a club with an average attendance of 11,661 last season and the Covid-19 crisis has presented many challenges but the club was better run than many, in part thanks to the calm, quiet leadership of long-standing chief executive, Jonathan Jackson.

The decision to plunge it into administration, then, made no sense, and not when Au Yeung’s Next Leader Fund (NLF) had acquired it only four weeks earlier from IEC. Indeed, it is a business decision so illogical that many have been left to wonder if there is some credence to claims - aired by the EFL chairman, Rick Parry, in a private conversation with a Wigan fan he did not know was being recorded - that the crisis is in some way linked to “a bet in the Philippines on them being relegated”.

“I neither believe it nor disbelieve it at this moment in time,” says Gerald Krasner of the administrators, Begbies Traynor who, along with colleagues Paul Stanley and Dean Watson, is busy trying to rescue the club.

Something does not sit right, though. Until recently, the same businessman and professional poker player, Dr Choi Chiu Fai Stanley, who had bought Wigan from Whelan in 2018 through his IEC consortium also majority owned NLF. Yet by June 24 - incidentally the very same day Krasner was first asked to look at the case as an administrator - Au Yeung had assumed full ownership of Wigan in a £17.5m takeover that also saw the £24.6m IEC had invested into the club repaid in full. Au Yeung himself admitted on Tuesday he had invested more than £40m. If you are looking for an analogy to describe what happened next, Stanley provided it as he fielded questions alongside Krasner this week.

“You buy a car and run it for two years but then I come along and give you more than you paid for it, collect the keys, drive it straight to the scrapyard and hand in the keys,” said Stanley. “We’ve got 90 years’ experience between us. We thought we’d seen everything but we haven’t seen this before.”

Six days after Whelan’s fairytale unravelled, and just hours after it was confirmed that 75 of the club’s near 200-strong staff had been made redundant, including some of the recruitment team that had been working on those transfer deals, Au Yeung came out with a statement which took Wigan supporters for idiots and drew a swift, sharp rebuke from the English Football League (EFL) after he tried to blame the situation on the coronavirus pandemic.

This crisis does not reflect well on the EFL, and the fury of fans towards the governing body is unlikely to subside any time soon, but it was possible to detect both the simmering anger at Au Yeung’s claims and exasperation at the limitations of the current owners’ and directors’ test that paved the way for this mess in a punchy 955 word statement released at 7.30pm on Tuesday. Au Yeung had some gall blaming the pandemic for his actions when it had been raging for months and football was still suspended by the time he bought the club and, six weeks earlier, the first team squad had agreed 30 per cent wage deferrals in recognition of matchday income being decimated.

As for the much maligned test, for those who cannot fathom why the EFL have yet to overhaul the process, it is not quite that simple. The chaos caused by Covid has certainly slowed matters, and more probably should have been done by now. But clubs also need to vote through change and, while many want to see an end to reckless ownership, there is also a wariness about approving a more restrictive, robust test that could limit future sale options. “You can’t have your cake and eat it,” an EFL source said.

None of which helps Wigan right now, though. Wigan Warriors rugby league club, who groundshare the DW with Athletic, have stepped forward and declared their willingness to buy the football club. It is a bid that has the backing of the local council and probably many fans who would far rather they had local businessmen with the club’s best interests at heart running the show than a faceless overseas investor whose only communication now seems to be through his UK based lawyers and PR firm. Begbies and the EFL are investigating the circumstances behind Wigan’s administration and local MPs are calling for a full-scale inquiry into what they call a “major global scandal”. There are documents purportedly linking Wigan’s Chinese owners to a bankruptcy case in Hong Kong in 2012. What those investigations yield - and how quickly - is anyone’s guess but the tanks are already parked on Wigan’s lawn and the administrators will have to move fast.

Most pressing, for the moment at least, is the £6m owed to non-football creditors, in particular HMRC. The club are appealing a 12-point deduction - which has yet to be applied - following administration but there is the added threat of an additional 15 point deduction if any new owner fails to pay 25 per cent of the money owed to creditors within a specific time frame.

Raising cash to cover that shortfall is a priority and all options appear to be on the table, including the worrying prospect for Cook of his star players being flogged in a firesale and the club’s best up and coming talent being picked off by Premier League vultures.

Keith Harris, the former Football League chairman, has been drafted in to help advise on player sales and Wigan at least seem determined to mount some resistance. Tottenham Hotspur, for example, came in with a joint bid for the England youth internationals, Jensen Weir and Alfie Devine, that was dismissed out of hand. Weir is the Warrington born son of the former Everton, Rangers and Scotland defender, David, and an England Under-18 midfielder. Devine, 15, another midfielder, is three years Weir’s junior but also very highly regarded with sporting pedigree that runs in the family. His dad, Sean, used to play rugby league professionally for St Helens and Devine was named player of the tournament at a recent Under-16 tournament with England that showcased some of the continent’s brightest talents.

Further up the food chain, Cook risks losing key first team players for cut price fees. Antonee Robinson would have joined AC Milan in January in a projected £10m deal only for medical tests to reveal an irregularity with the left back’s heart rhythm. But Robinson has a release clause that would make him available for just £1.5m if Wigan are relegated to League One, as is also the case with midfielder Joe Williams. Milan are still interested in Robinson, as are Watford and West Bromwich Albion.

All the while, Cook has got to try and keep motivated and focused a squad that is not being paid its wages in full. Wigan are currently six points clear of the relegation zone and face Queens Park Rangers at the DW Stadium on Wednesday night but, with a points deduction hanging over them, they need wins.

With so much to contend with, Cook is probably grateful he is mainly being spared questions from the media. The administrators are fielding the questions but it was a rather grim scene in a sprawling suite at the DW on Tuesday morning. The lighting was low, in keeping with the mood at a club that has just been turned upside down, and as reporters were still taking to their seats, each two metres apart from one another, Krasner fired off a 50th non-disclosure agreement to the latest potential buyer - and unlikely the last.

For a moment, though, it was easy to forget the press conference was about the future of a football club. Looking at the branding on the small stage behind where Krasner and Stanley stood, it felt more like an advertisement for their company, Begbies Traynor. Would club branding not have been more appropriate? Still, as missteps go in this whole sorry saga, it was at the bottom of the pile. Krasner talked and those assembled listened. The former chairman of Leeds United gives the impression of a man who rather likes the spotlight but then perhaps that is offset by the more sober tone struck by Stanley.

Either way, Wigan fans are unlikely to care about such details so long as the pair, and Watson, find a credible buyer who can save the club. They certainly seem confident of that but the clock is ticking, and what damage is inflicted in the meantime remains to be seen.

[Chester Perry]

Meanwhile David Conn in the Guardian says that the wigan issue is yet another indication that the games finances need rethinking

Wigan debacle exposes need for reset of English football's finances
Whatever the ins and outs of its dramatic collapse, the club’s fate is symptomatic of EFL’s ongoing financial plight

David Conn - Wed 8 Jul 2020 16.15 BST - Last modified on Wed 8 Jul 2020 21.45 BST

In the week since Wigan Athletic were dumped into administration like litter thrown from a speeding car, the tale of some underlying betting scandal became a compelling distraction from football’s real, pressing issues glinting in the wreckage. The EFL identified the cause – the ruinous structure of the game itself – in an unusually robust statement following the belated first public comments of Hong Kong-based Au Yeung, who took over the club then collapsed it in a week.

Rejecting his effort to cite the coronavirus crisis as an explanation, the EFL set out its case for wholesale reform, including a call for the Premier League to share money more fairly: “This set of circumstances,” the league said, “is more illustrative of the wider financial challenges facing EFL clubs, who, without a full and comprehensive reset of football’s finances, including how monies are distributed throughout the game, will continue to struggle to meet the demands of an outdated and unsustainable model.”

The causes of the financial trap are glaringly clear. The Premier League clubs sit on an £8.64bn three‑year TV deal, dwarfing the EFL’s, but the huge wages they pay inflate those in the Championship, made worse by parachute payments for relegated clubs. So Championship clubs are drawn into overspending, to attract players who might win them promotion, and almost all lose millions and rely on owners to fund them. Wigan present another classic case study for proper financial fair play rules, requiring clubs to spend only what they make in revenues, but Championship club owners want to win the promotion lottery, so have set their allowed annual losses at an absurd, self‑destructive £13m.

The case for sharing money more evenly, which the old First Division did before breaking away from the Football League in 1992 to form the Premier League, is not just benevolence, to save the EFL from financial purgatory. Promotion and relegation means that many clubs relegated from the Premier League fall very hard, despite the parachutes. That can be seen from any past Premier League table; billionaire-owned clubs stocking the top places, while many clubs below that have since suffered financial crises after relegation. Wigan were a member until 2013, Bolton till 2012.

The ruthlessness with which Au Yeung dropped the club should focus minds on the fundamental cause, rather than some rumours about gambling. That was mused on by the EFL chairman, Rick Parry, to a neighbouring Wigan supporter who recorded the conversation, and it does not take much analysis to discount. Parry himself only mentioned it as a far-fetched rumour going around, in the context of Au Yeung’s conduct being inexplicable, rather than as a solid lead to follow.

In his statement, Au Yeung confirmed the remarkable scenario already apparent from documents published on the Hong Kong stock exchange by the previous owner, Hong Kong-based casino company International Entertainment Corporation (IEC), whose major shareholder is the high stakes poker player Stanley Choi. Au Yeung, at first in partnership with Choi, apparently spent £41.5m buying the club, then opted to throw that money away immediately by putting the club into administration. His explanation that it was due to the coronavirus crisis looked bizarre – he bought the club on 4 June, during the crisis itself, taking full control on 24 June, after the Championship restarted. He put the club into administration on 1 July.

The EFL’s riposte bristled with irritation at that explanation, saying the league “fundamentally disagrees” it had anything to do with coronavirus, because Au Yeung had shown them he had the money to fund the club, as part of the takeover process. The flaw in the rules, that a prospective owner does not have to make that money available, is only a detail in football’s broader faultlines exposed by the crisis.

Leaving aside the way that Choi and Au Yeung engineered it, the key reason for IEC offloading the club to them was clearly the loss-making drain of the Championship. That was explained repeatedly in IEC’s sale document, published as recently as 8 May. IEC were introduced to the long-term owner, Dave Whelan, by Joe Royle’s son Darren, whom executives had met at a conference in 2017 and made chairman after they bought the club. They paid Whelan £15.9m, in the hope they would hit the jackpot by winning promotion to the Premier League. Within a year they realised they had chucked in a further £24.4m to pay excessive players’ wages, for no more return than bobbing in the depths of the Championship.

English football has 20 clubs sitting on the world’s largest TV deals, 24 in the division below losing £16m on average per year, and 47 in League One and League Two who could not afford to complete the season and are facing financial crises. The tale of gambling plots at Wigan became almost a comfort, distracting from the real lesson of the collapse: football’s financial structures do need that “reset” the EFL called for.

[claretburns]

Tifo is a football podcast prepared by the journalists who work for The Athletic, in recent weeks they have done various podcasts named "What's going on at (club name)?" Today they have released one about Wigan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEzfJRU5RJA

As an aside, did a Championship predictor for the results for the rest of this season and even with the 12 point deduction, I have Wigan surviving on goal difference with Huddersfield, Hull and Barnsley being relegated.

[claretburns]

Paul Cook interview on BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53339102

[Chester Perry]

EFL Chairman Rick Parry says English football has been disrespected

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53341269

[Billy Balfour]

David Squires comic strip on Wigan Athletic going into administration.


https://bit.ly/3iS42bh

[Chester Perry]

Brighton in quick to snap up one of their most promising junior talents for their Academy - the benefits of being owned by a billionaire I suppose - no surprise that it is an England youth international given Dan Ashworth's previous role

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53365739

[claptrappers_union]

Lots of text, but this stood out from the new owner

"Wigan Athletic is a wonderful football club with rich history and a passionate fanbase,"

If that’s what he believed he purchased, then I don’t blame him getting rid

[Leisure]

Winning 2 nil and at the minute even with a 12 point deduction they would still be outside the bottom 3.

[Bosscat]

3-0 now ....

Come on pie eaters stick it to the b*****ds that put you in the mire

[Leisure]

Now 3 up.

[ChrisG]

5 now, not even half time

[ChrisG]

Make that 6

[Culmclaret]

Think that is the goal difference sorted then!

[Gordaleman]

I think Wigan are trying to make a point. 12 points actually, clear of the third relegation spot which is now Hull.

I wonder if Milwall fancy doing something similar, ha ha?

[ChrisG]

7

[FactualFrank]

Bejesus.

[FactualFrank]

Half time! I thought it must have been nearly 90 mins.

[tiger76]

Have Wigan been brilliant, or are Hull just dire? and looking at the updates it could have been more than 6, how on earth are Hull going to recover in the last couple of games now.

[FactualFrank]

Watch this... it'll finish 7-0 now.

[ChrisG]

Screenshot_20200714-184940_FlashScore.jpg (394.33 KiB) Viewed 2435 times

[FactualFrank]

Have Wigan been brilliant, or are Hull just dire? and looking at the updates it could have been more than 6, how on earth are Hull going to recover in the last couple of games now.

Not watched it, but the stats show 8 shots on target.

8 shots on target - 7 goals.

[Culmclaret]

Reminds me of us against Port Vale in 83/84. We got the seventh after 50 mins but then put our feet up!

[ChrisG]

5 different goalscorers too

[Conroysleftfoot]

I thought Hull were poor but this is ridiculous. Just shows what happens when you sell you best players.

[FactualFrank]

In the Uni days me and my mate used to have a saying of, "Givin' it Wigan!" - as in, Giving it beans - giving it your all. He was from Kendal, so maybe it was a Cumbrian thing.

Well - they really are givin' it Wigan!

[Rowls]

Kin-L

[Colburn_Claret]

EFL will probably overturn the points deduction now, knowing that they won't get any flak for doing so
As Phil would say, justice.

[Bosscat]

7 bloody nil at half time do you think Hull are in trouble

[FactualFrank]

7 bloody nil at half time do you think Hull are in trouble

It's not full time yet. They've time to pull it back.

[tiger76]

2 players on a HT, and 3 assists for Jamal Lowe. What does the Hull manager say after that. They somehow have to regain pride in the 2nd half, but Wigan will fancy hitting double figures now. If the Latics wanted to send a message they are certainly doing that.

[Conroysleftfoot]

So, as it stands now Wigan would not be relegated even with a 12 point deduction . But would they start next season in the Championship at -12?

[FactualFrank]

Is it definitely football they're playing and it's not Wigan Warriors vs Hull KR?