Wigan in Administration

Wigan Warriors have announced they are tabling a bid to buy Wigan Athletic and have notified administrators of their interest #WAFC pic.twitter.com/AFyixHO9O9

— BBC RM Sport (@BBCRMsport) July 7, 2020

Sluffy wrote:

Wigan Warriors have announced they are tabling a bid to buy Wigan Athletic and have notified administrators of their interest #WAFC pic.twitter.com/AFyixHO9O9

— BBC RM Sport (@BBCRMsport) July 7, 2020

..and Wigan appealing against their 12 point deduction. Good luck with that.

Does anyone know if Wigan's 12 point deduction will come in this season or next?

If it's this season they'll go bottom of the Championship, 7 points from safety with just 5 games left to play. 3 of those games are against teams at the bottom i.e. Barnsley, Hull and Charlton so it could get exciting.

wanderlust wrote:Does anyone know if Wigan's 12 point deduction will come in this season or next?

If it's this season they'll go bottom of the Championship, 7 points from safety with just 5 games left to play. 3 of those games are against teams at the bottom i.e. Barnsley, Hull and Charlton so it could get exciting.

They will get the -12 points this season UNLESS they end the season in the bottom three anyway (unlikely but possible) in which case they will start next season on -12 points.

Wonder if this bloke was 'Howard' who knew so much of what was going on behind the scenes during Bolton's Administration?

As for his views about the EFL, again I ask what are they suppose to do other than the checks they already take?

Wigan changed ownership during the season on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Are the EFL really going to say 'just a minute, we have to suspend the league while we see if the new owners pass all our tests? And if they can't we will kick you out of the league midseason?

As it happened they didn't even get the chance to do that as Administration was brought in urgently within a month of the takeover.

What do people really think the EFL can do???

Anyway -

No, he's not Howard. I used to work with Jason, he's not bright enough to be Howard.

Hip Priest wrote:No, he's not Howard. I used to work with Jason, he's not bright enough to be Howard.

Meeeowww

TBF we never did establish if "Howard" was bright or not as he did have access to inside information but his analysis of it was as speculative (and as inaccurate as it turned out) as anyone else's. Having inside information doesn't equate to being bright but it can be used to make it appear that way. Could still be your ex-colleague Jason.

wanderlust wrote:

Hip Priest wrote:No, he's not Howard. I used to work with Jason, he's not bright enough to be Howard.

Meeeowww

TBF we never did establish if "Howard" was bright or not as he did have access to inside information but his analysis of it was as speculative (and as inaccurate as it turned out) as anyone else's. Having inside information doesn't equate to being bright but it can be used to make it appear that way. Could still be your ex-colleague Jason.

I doubt Howard was doing the job he was if he wasn't bright in the first place.

It's clear whoever was behind the Howard account was/is intelligent and he entertained (and informed/taught me) a great deal during his spell over on ww - from where he was eventually banned - join the club mate!

If you do happen to be reading this there's a place for you on Bolton Nuts anytime you'd like!

Same goes for Jason too.

It seems Wigan have appointed a QC to challenge the EFL over the 12 point deduction. I don’t actually see how their situation is actually any worse than ours as it makes no difference where their owners are based. Were they to be successful though maybe we would have a case ourselves against the EFL? The administrator reckons there are several seriously interested parties wanting to buy them but only one who has indicated they want all 5 of the integrated companies. All sounds so familiar so let’s hope they have the doggedness of FV and nothing nasty comes out of the woodwork regarding their owners indiscretions?

Whitesince63 wrote:It seems Wigan have appointed a QC to challenge the EFL over the 12 point deduction. I don’t actually see how their situation is actually any worse than ours as it makes no difference where their owners are based. Were they to be successful though maybe we would have a case ourselves against the EFL? The administrator reckons there are several seriously interested parties wanting to buy them but only one who has indicated they want all 5 of the integrated companies. All sounds so familiar so let’s hope they have the doggedness of FV and nothing nasty comes out of the woodwork regarding their owners indiscretions?

Their position is completely different to ours and as far as I know any other club forced into Administration.

In a nutshell it seems that club was deliberately sold by the owner to another company he had 51% interest in and a mere 20 days later seemingly 'forced' the club into Administration by appointing a number of new directors to overrule the others in a majority vote.

Wigan were solvent (had zero debts and no charges on their assets) at the time of being placed into Administration.

The club were apparently expecting the new owners to put money into the club to pay the players deferred wages that were about to fall due but could easily have taken a loan out on the clubs assets (similar to the BluMarble loan Holdsworth took out for instance) instead if necessary.

There was absolutely no reason for the club to go into Administration and the obvious suspicion it was done deliberately for an ulterior motive - one of which is a gambling scam - big bets laid on Wigan being relegated this season apparently (or so the gossip says - no proof that there has been).

The owner is Chinese and the new company in control of the club and putting them into Administration is quoted on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

It appears from my view to be a deliberately and completely unnecessary 'forced' Administration and that the intentions for doing so are very, very questionable to say the least.

The simple difference between Bolton (and every other club going in Administration) and Wigan is that Bolton became insolvent by running out of both money and assets, whilst Wigan may well have been plunged into cash flow difficulties but seemed to have abundant resources to raise the cash and carry on trading.

In short the club had no need to go into Administration - yet it was done so deliberately - and it looks quite likely that something highly questionable shall we say, as taken place.

What appears to have happened is this.

Rich Chinese businessman with a number of companies uses one of then to buy Wigan. A couple of years later he's realised that Wigan won't be getting promoted to all that lovely Sky money in the Premier League anytime soon and by now as put something like £40m of his money into buying the club and running it at a loss since then.

He has an idea how to get it back!

He uses another of the companies he owns to buy the club off him for £40m, the new company therefore on paper owns a club valued at £40m (because they've just bought it for that) but in effect is worth nothing like that.

It also knows that the club will be trading at a bigger loss for the foreseeable future because it has to play behind closed doors.

He can't sell it on to anyone for anything like £40m and the longer he keeps it the more he has to pay out his own pocket to keep it going, so he basically does a moonlight flit - runs away from the club and puts the Administrators in to sell it.

It will sell because it has assets of value but all the costs of keeping it going and the Admins fee will be deducted from whatever it sells for.

There may even be a bit of money left over from the sale receipt to go to the owner who has just done all this!

Net result is that he got all his money back and walks away whilst the club takes the 'hit' of Administration and points deduction.

I guess the best thing that could happen is that Wigan even after the -12 points deduction gains enough points to stay up - I think they may well do so too.

The problem is if they don't they get relegated through no fault of the club itself as such.


The irony in all of this is that many people wanted the owner to buy Bolton (instead of Wigan) from Anderson because they believed KA was a crook!!!

Anderson wasn't a crook at all but simply refused to fund an insolvent business from his own personal wealth - which he was quite within his rights - but people still can't seem to understand this?

Wigan battering Hull 8 nil has really put the cat amongst the pigeons because if they take away 12 points this season they are still favourites to survive ATM.

wanderlust wrote:Wigan battering Hull 8 nil has really put the cat amongst the pigeons because if they take away 12 points this season they are still favourites to survive ATM.

Wigan will stay up, they are miles better than the clubs down the bottom even with 12 points taken from them.

The club should never have been placed in Administration - they have no debts ffs!

Nothing, zilch, completely solvent.

The club (let's focus on that rather than the owner) had planned for a cash injection from the owner for cash flow purposes - but for whatever reason it never came and the owner it appears as simply walked away!

The business as far as I can tell, owns all the assets - ground, land stadium, etc and could easily have borrowed against those to solve their cashflow issue.

As far as I can tell they seem to be trading with a £9m deficiency which the owner has been covering (like what Eddie Davies used to do).

The season will end shortly and I expect some of the players will soon be out of contract and off the payroll.  

Anyone could buy the club out of Administration and fund the next couple of seasons trading deficits until they shed all their big earners.  The funding could come from within the club - sales of players (think £6m for Madine in a similar position for us) or the sale of assets (we had no assets free of charges to sell/put of for security against loans), or come from the new owners personal funds - if that's what he wanted to do.

The sale should be quick and straight forward as there are no creditors to settle with, no joint Administrators and no owner/former owner fighting over 'owed' monies to/from each other.

Wigan seemed to have sold a youth team player for £500k which will pay the players wages and possibly sell another player or two to fund the cost of the Administration process.

We (Bolton) on the other hand had an insolvent club, with many outstanding creditors and a toxic relationship with the owner at that time (KA) fuelled by greedy players wanting money from an empty pot and deciding to go on strike (with this being overarched all the time with Iles and the ST whipping up hatred towards Anderson and geeing up the social media braindead that followed them with little to no knowledge of how companies entering insolvency actually work).

Is it any wonder our Administration was about warring parties entrenching themselves to protect their positions with seemingly little love loss towards each other - and in Anderson's case - towards the supporter fanbase who had abused and threatened him so much by that time the police advised him and his family not to attend the club for fear of their own safety!

Wigan have no players with ill will towards the club/owner, who have not thrown their toys out of the pram/gone on strike/refused to get on the match bus/gone in to major strops, etc, etc and have simply applied themselves to the task in hand unlike our lot did.  Then again they didn't have the Wigan equivalent to Iles and the ST cheerleading for them against the clubs owner - nor it must be said a pisshead leader of the pack wanting everyone to go on strike like we had with Wheater.

Eight - nil against a club they might have been competing with to stay in the league says it all - our lot were too busy pissing it up at Fannys.

And don't forget, everyone of them still got every penny of their wages in the end!

Where are they now?

Wheater at Oldham, Ameobi has broken no pots at Forest, Andy Taylor couldn't find a club, the Polish bloke is at a division two Turkish side, Vela at Shrewsbury (failed at Hibbs).

Wouldn't want any of them in the trenches with me when push comes to shove!

Hey ho.

If Wigan players and staff haven’t missed a pay cheque, I don’t see how you can make a direct comparison between Wigan’s players behaviour and ours. It’s a pretty substantial difference in situation.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:If Wigan players and staff haven’t missed a pay cheque, I don’t see how you can make a direct comparison between Wigan’s players behaviour and ours. It’s a pretty substantial difference in situation.

The cashflow issue was to cover the players deferred wages that was falling due it was this that triggered the Administration although technically at the time the club had not defaulted on any payments - ie had no creditors outstanding.

From memory the players have since only received 20% of their wages (the sale of the youngster (Weir) to Brighton for a reported £500k, will resolve the issue.

So as far as the Wigan players were concerned before they kicked off last night, they were outstanding three months (I think it was) deferred wages and 80% of the current months as well.

They were always going to be paid in full no matter what because they are 'football' creditors and are the first creditors to be 'top sliced' and paid in the ranking priority, in order to exit Administration.

Exactly the same position BWFC players were in - ie guaranteed to be paid in full.

The circumstances and timescales may well be different but the end result was/is exactly the same namely the players whether they be from BWFC or WAFC - all KNEW they would be paid in full but one lot went on strike (twice I may add) and the others went out and won 8-0.

Fwiw Wheater was interviewed on video by Michela Wain (the Bolton woman who was on The Apprentice a year or two back) and 'happily' explained that he was behind the players strike because he thought it would 'force' Anderson to dip into his personal wealth in order to pay his and the other players wages.

He just laughed when it turned out he didn't and the strike was for nothing.

He was even asked if he thought he should have put the fans first and played to which he more or less said he cared more about his money than them!

Just completely the wrong attitude imo.

Fwiw he says he was owed two months wages at the time of the strike - Wigan players awaiting 3 months deferred wages and 80% of one months wage more or less add up to around a similar total of about 2 months outstanding wages.

Wigan players showed a completely different attitude in a comparable situation to the one Wheater and his mates were in!

Anyway water under the bridge now.

Sorry not following, had the Wigan players missed wages or not?

Thanks for posting Wheater video, interested to hear this actually what minutes are the comments you refer to? Imagine there’s a lot of dead air filling for 48 minutes!

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Sorry not following, had the Wigan players missed wages or not?

Thanks for posting Wheater video, interested to hear this actually what minutes are the comments you refer to? Imagine there’s a lot of dead air filling for 48 minutes!

They hadn't when the club went into Administration but they have since - and before last nights match.

About a year ago when I watched the video - iirc I even posted it up on Nuts at the time.

And if you think I'm going to watch it through all again just to find the times of the clips just for you - then you best think again!

Charlton's 92nd minute equaliser has put Wigan right back in the mix - it puts them on 46 if the penalty points are applied but with a much better GD than Hull and Luton who are playing each other right now. If either team wins they'll technically be out of the bottom 3 at Wigan's expense so a draw would be the best result for the pie eaters.

Just read that the EFL have applied the 12 point penalty with immediate effect which means that anything less than a win for Wigan tonight v Fulham sees them relegated.

Wigan bite the dust awaiting appeal

Sluffy wrote:

Wigan will stay up, they are miles better than the clubs down the bottom even with 12 points taken from them.

Or not.