Looking at Latics remaining fixtures, 3 of the 4 are against teams in the bottom 4. They have a good chance of getting out of the hole they've been dropped into
Okay, lets go back to the statement from the club.
Lenagan, along with Gary Speakman and Darryl Eales, are leading the consortium
Lenagan, a proud Wiganer, believes the Championship outfit is best being "locally owned". He says if successful, the clubs would be under the same ownership but there would be no merger - they would retain their own training facilities and staff.
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.
Purely concentrating on Wigan RL here for a moment, this would seem to imply that IL is opening up the club to further investment? Obviously we've incurred some heavy losses over the last couple of years (even before the club reports on accounts during Covid) which he's had to carry solely. Assuming if the bid for Latics is unsuccessful everything carries on as before, or does it?
Okay, lets go back to the statement from the club.
Lenagan, along with Gary Speakman and Darryl Eales, are leading the consortium
Lenagan, a proud Wiganer, believes the Championship outfit is best being "locally owned". He says if successful, the clubs would be under the same ownership but there would be no merger - they would retain their own training facilities and staff.
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.
Purely concentrating on Wigan RL here for a moment, this would seem to imply that IL is opening up the club to further investment? Obviously we've incurred some heavy losses over the last couple of years (even before the club reports on accounts during Covid) which he's had to carry solely. Assuming if the bid for Latics is unsuccessful everything carries on as before, or does it?
Looking at Latics remaining fixtures, 3 of the 4 are against teams in the bottom 4. They have a good chance of getting out of the hole they've been dropped into
That could be a double edged sword, as staying up means the outgoings are greater for the next 12 months. Playing contracts usually have a promotion/relegation clause, whereby wages increase/decrease by 30-40% depending on what division you play in.
As no spectators are allowed, whoever buys the club will have to fill a bigger black hole than if they were a L1 club with L1 outgoings.
Looking at Latics remaining fixtures, 3 of the 4 are against teams in the bottom 4. They have a good chance of getting out of the hole they've been dropped into
What has happen at Wigan Athletic has been on the cards for some time with falling attendances, poorer standard of players etc and no major investment by the new Chinese owners as what was expected by their supporters and no doubt by those managing the club, following the sale to the Chinese company.
If you are spending more than you what you have coming in, you will end up in debt and administration, especially if any new owners are not doing anything to improve the financial situation and only bought the club for reasons other than being interested in football, which appears to be the case of what has happened to the Latic's. A financial situation which also has been made worse by the pandemic.
Like I have said before, Whelan knows when it is the right time to get out of a business and does not care less to whom he sells as was proved by the sale of JJB Sports which within months of being sold, went out of business under the new owners.
The receiver said he'd had 50 expressed interests in buying the club but only three had provided proof of funds. No doubt IL and the others have proved they have the money and, say, the other two were from China/HK and Sordid Arabia then he could well be looking at IL & Co as the preferred bidder. I'd like IL etc to takeover the Latics as I think Wigan RL would get an overall better financial deal than we have at present.