Wigan in Administration

So you went on our main rivals forum, registered as a Bolton fan and they wouldn't approve you?

I am shocked.

Natasha Whittam wrote:So you went on our main rivals forum, registered as a Bolton fan and they wouldn't approve you?

I am shocked.

I thought it was a grownups site.

Clearly I was very much mistaken about that.

Seems they were as petty, bigoted, prejudiced and intolerant of someone they don't even know simply because I told them I come from Bolton.

I guess they did me a favour really - and all I was trying to do was help then!!!

Wigan docked 3 points with immediate effect.

WIGAN ATHLETIC DEDUCTED THREE POINTS WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT FOLLOWING FAILURE TO PAY PLAYER SALARIES WHILST FURTHER CHARGES REFERRED TO AN INDEPENDENT DISCIPLINARY COMMISSION.

- Wigan Athletic deducted three points with immediate effect by the EFL

- Club also charged with misconduct after failing to meet Agreed Decision terms

- Further charges referred to an Independent Disciplinary Commission

The EFL has informed Wigan Athletic that it has, with immediate effect, been deducted three points from the 2022/23 Championship table after the Club has failed to pay player salaries in March 2023.

The Club had previously been charged and sanctioned for failing to adhere to the terms of the Standard Contracts that were in force between the Club and its Players in the months of June 2022, July 2022 and October 2022.

This latest infringement by the Club to meet its obligations means the terms of the Agreed Decision the Club entered into with the EFL in January 2023 has been breached and the application of the suspended sporting sanction has been automatically triggered.

In a further breach of the Agreed Decision, the Club’s owner has failed to deposit an amount equal to 125% of its forecast monthly wage bill in a designated Club account. This had been a key term of the Agreed Decision to help prevent the Club breaching EFL Regulations again, should there be future delays in the processing of overseas payments.

Separately, new charges have now been issued to the Club following this latest instance of non-payment of player wages and for not complying with the Agreed Decision. The Club’s owner will also be charged with misconduct, with the matter to be referred to an Independent Disciplinary Commission.

The Club notes the EFL statement and charge and will issue a further update on the current wage situation in due course.

https://wiganathletic.com/news/2023/march/20/EFL-confirm-immediate-points-deduction---new-charges-issued/

Have to agree with NAT on this Sluffy, I think going on there and blatantly advertising you were a Bolton fan, especially under the current circumstances, was a bit naive of you. I don’t blame them for not authorising your membership, how were they to know you were wanting to help. I think the problem is that most fans of other clubs just join sites to abuse and criticise, childish I know, but when a genuine fan tries to join openly they’re rejected. Maybe you could try again under a new nickname and see if you have better luck I’m sure they’d value your knowledge. I don’t like Wigan particularly, especially the eejits and their jelly and ice cream nonsense but you wouldn’t wish their problems on any club and I’m sure none of us want to see another Bury. They’ve been stupid really and I think they need to accept that they don’t have the income at the moment to spend the way they have. Maybe if they just accepted they are a L1 or L2 club and aligned their spending to their income they’d have a better and more sustainable future than they look like having at the moment, if they have one at all? 🥴

You missed the whole point of me telling them I was a Bolton fan - as all those who would want to rip the piss out of them would NOT say they were from Bolton.

I had thought the bloke in charge over there would have enough brains in his head to think that either a genuine football fan (or a complete idiot) would openly state they were a Bolton supporter at the time of Wigan' crisis!

Anyway I only wanted to help them as clearly several of them were going around in circles on stuff I definitely could have enlightened them on.

I'm not bothered, their loss and no doubt did me a favour in the end.

I've been banned from a number of forums over the years, so another one doesn't make much difference to me.

Speaking of banned from forums, I no longer can even view ww as a visitor anymore, so I assume it is either off-line, is now member access only, or they real have some sort of personal issue with me!

Eh ho, it's only the internet when all said and done!

Sluffy wrote:Speaking of banned from forums, I no longer can even view ww as a visitor anymore, so I assume it is either off-line, is now member access only, or they real have some sort of personal issue with me!

My virus protection won't let me view WW, something to do with certificates.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Sluffy wrote:Speaking of banned from forums, I no longer can even view ww as a visitor anymore, so I assume it is either off-line, is now member access only, or they really have some sort of personal issue with me!

My virus protection won't let me view WW, something to do with certificates.

Thanks, same with me when I use my mobile and when I use the laptop which must already have their cookie on it, I get 'the site is having issues or moved to a new web address'.

The bloke who took on the site after the man who founded it sadly died, is I understand some sort of an IT expert so I would have thought he was on top of all these things?

It's been like that for about three days now?

Perhaps the Wigan fans have hacked them!!!




(Only joking if any ww members are reading this!)

Sluffy wrote:

Thanks, same with me when I use my mobile and when I use the laptop which must already have their cookie on it, I get 'the site is having issues or moved to a new web address'.

The bloke who took on the site after the man who founded it sadly died, is I understand some sort of an IT expert so I would have thought he was on top of all these things?

It's been like that for about three days now?

Perhaps the Wigan fans have hacked them!!!




(Only joking if any ww members are reading this!)

All I'm getting is 'This site can't be reached'.

This site can’t be reached
The web page at https://www.wanderersways.com/forum/forum/3-terrace-talk/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

ERR_FAILED

I'm finding it hard to have any sympathy for the pie eaters after them gloating about our financial issues a few years ago, what goes around comes around i guess 

Wigan having another bad day it seems.

Update -

Wigan's equivalent to Neil Hart and their clubs manager went to Bahrain to see the owner on Friday and have returned since but have said nothing publicly yet.

The owner's son in law, and Chairman, has tweeted the owners trying to sell off private asset to raise the money for the wages.

Wages paid every four weeks, it's two weeks since last pay day, and players wages still not paid.

And of course two weeks to find next months wages!

Players have apparently refused to train yesterday and today.

One of their players (Caulker) has gone public saying he doesn't believe what the owners are telling them and it's now effecting players mental health.

Wigan fan's in meltdown on social media...

Confirmation of my last post...

Wages finally paid but...


...they've sacked their CEO (Neil Hart's equivalent)


AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN, TALAL AL HAMMAD

https://wiganathletic.com/news/2023/march/24/an-open-letter-from-chairman-talal-al-hammad/

Only the cruel would want to see Wigan go to the wall but it’s hard to see how they’re going to progress  much with the current ownership who are clearly struggling financially. They may have paid the wages outstanding but aren’t they due again so will those be paid? We know the effect it has on the players from our own experience and it can’t be good for them so I think it’s going to be a torrid end to the season for their fans and a very interesting summer. From what I can gather they’re having trouble with season ticket sales, probably not surprising if the fans aren’t even sure they’ll have a club at all.

I'm cruel, bring it on. Sooner the better. They were taking the piss when we were facing meltdown.
I put many a pound coin into "Save The Shakers" buckets when Bury were up against it but these Little Englander Yonners I can't rustle up any form of compassion whatsoever for. Sorry

Wigan fans going round and around in circles again!

This was posted in the Mail today -

Wigan sack CEO Mal Brannigan amid pay crisis

The crisis at Wigan Athletic — which saw players who were furious at not receiving their wages on time for a fifth time go on strike — has resulted in the end of the road for Mal Brannigan. Agenda readers may remember the outgoing chief executive as the man who asked if there was 'anything we could do to keep this out of the paper' on one of the previous occasions of late payment.

It is understood a review of the club's finances uncovered a dramatic overspend under the watch of Brannigan, who was paid about £250,000 a year — two and a half times as much as the same role paid when the Championship side were in the Premier League.

It is understood that Wigan, who were hit with a three-point deduction, now need to find about £7million to see them through to the end of the season having finally paid players' wages on Friday.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-11904629/SPORTS-AGENDA-Michael-Vaughan-goes-offensive-charity-event.html

There are really two points here - £7m to the end of the season and the former CEO (and also a Director of the club) £250k wages.

Most their fans believe the £7m is far to high an amount and the £250k is a lie.

I believe both totals are probably near the mark.

My reasoning is that the clubs previous years account's as having to pay wages of roughly £1m per month (every 28 days in their case).

Now the end of the season I believe is all the way through to the start of the next season in August and not the last ball being kicked this season in May, therefore that's another 5 pay days away (the next pay day falls due the first Friday in April remember!)

This season, being in the Championship the wage bill will be higher, so if we said 5 pay days at £1.2m a month, that comes to £6m - which does indeed make the £7m figure stated seem more than reasonable in my eyes.

As for the £250k paid to their now former CEO, the Wigan fans seem to be looking at what the highest paid Director was paid in their last years accounts, which is a lot less than the £250k figure.

The thing is though as the CEO he is an employee of the club and as such will be paid from the clubs wages!

He may also receive some payment being a Director as well - and combined the two amounts may well total the £250k stated.

(I suspect the person receiving the highest Directors payment may well be the clubs Chairman and not the CEO anyway!).


Interesting to see where all this will go as the club is clearly at the moment nothing more than a money pit for the owners.

They seem to be be wealthy on the one hand but have now missed payment of wages on time on several occasions now, which seems mystifying if they really are as rich as they appear to seem?

Something's not right to my mind but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is.

We already know the owners have sunk £16m into the club already and look at the mess they are currently in for it!!!

The next hurdle for them will be the next wages payment in early April.

(and presumably putting the 1.25 extra wages into a separate account as well, as they were told to do last time).

Will the owners still be happy to throw in more money...?

Latest on Wigan.

Last night the Chairman and Directors had a meeting with various fan groups.

The bottom line seems to be the Chairman (Mr Talal) accepts that they (the owners - Talal is the son-in law of the owner) have been very naive as how much it costs to run a club.

As such 'they' have had to sell off a private asset (a property in London for £33m) and have from the sale, paid the wages, deposited the EFL's demand of another 125% of the current wage bill into an 'emergency' account - to ensure wages will never be paid late again - and ringfenced the rest of the money to fund the ongoing trading losses of Wigan for future years.

They plan to do this by drawing down 20% of their budget total annually - ie if their budget is £10m, they will draw down £2m from the ringfenced money, to cover anticipated trading losses over the year.

They have sufficient monies to see the season out and are liaising with the EFL in respect of next season.

It seems on the face of it that Wigan does have an owner who has money and is prepared to waste it on club.

The Chairman also talks about long term commitment and finances to Wigan in both the short and medium term and talks about being sensible in the future about expectations.

(Sounds as though he want promotion when he bought the club (and sod the costs!) but it ended up biting him on his bum, to me).

One interesting thing the manager said was that his aim was to balance the age of the squad as such -



https://twitter.com/mfemigs/status/1640980698642219009

I wonder if that is sort of an industry norm perhaps and how we compare against it - I'm a bit busy these days to spend the time to work ours out.

Anyway for those wanting Wigan to be flushed away, it doesn't seem like it is going to happen too soon - also it doesn't look as though they are going to buy promotion like they had, anytime soon either.

Most of the details above are taken from this twitter thread -
https://twitter.com/mfemigs/status/1640980698642219009

Also whilst I was researching all the info for the post above, I came across a rather unpleasant history of their CEO they've just sacked, Malky Mackay.

Certainly worth a read as to how people appear to really be when out of the public spotlight - and I guess the poor governance of football's ruling bodies!

FA's decision on Malky Mackay texts sends 'shocking message'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/33572770#:~:text=Mackay%2C%20who%20was%20sacked%20by,%2C%20homophobic%20or%20anti%2DSemitic.

It's nice that Wigan's owners aren't prepared to fund a Championship team but if they are prepared to tip in £2 million of their own money per year they aren't going to be a lot worse than Bolton

The comment that they weren't expecting to be promoted is surprising.Signings like Sunderlands 30 goal a season top scorer and McClean are exactly the type of signings a club wanting to buy its way out of tier 3 would make

I don’t think we should take the actions of a few moronic Wigan fans as representative of their fans generally so no I wouldn’t want to see them disappear but it’s fairly certain that they’ll be in L1 again next year and probably for some time to come although it wouldn’t surprise me if they fell even further next season given that all, or most, of their high earners will be gone. They may also still be in for further penalties so let’s see how that turns out? Their owner may well have money but does he want to just keep losing it owning Wigan a club that lets face it have punched miles above their weight in recent years purely through owners funding it. By all accounts this one now wants to do it sustainably using younger players and bringing through their own talent but we know how difficult that is even with twice the support they have. They may have a fancy ground but to be fair they’re a L1 outfit at best and unless their owners want to throw more money at it that’s probably the highest they’ll be for the foreseeable future?

It's not just a few of them though is it WS63. It's a well known and statistically proven fact that 87.9% of all Latics fans are officially classed as moronic.

Just joshing of course W63 but you have to admit, the Buggers are a bit hard to like.