Is it about time there is a light?

by | Feb 25, 2021 | News

News likely next week

Next week may finally be the week that information is published by WASC or Admins on where the club’s destiny will lie.

With a Bahrain Consortium cleared by the EFL and Adminstrators to go ahead with the sale, documents are now with them to sign and to get Wigan Athletic back to some sort of normality.

The question of why it has took so long is bound to raise its head and we have a good idea where the blame lies.

Back in July last year, Wigan Athletic fans woke up to the news that the club was in administration. Not that the holding company was in trouble, not that the owners wanted to offload the club and to put it up for sale, the stark statement that we were in administration, full stop.

4 weeks earlier, IEC had moved us over to NLF in what was thought then to be just an internal administration task, not the impending administration that was to come. NLF was a company set up by the same owners of IEC with the addition of a minor shareholder Wai Kay Au Yeung.

Our very own Club statement on the website at the said time that under the EFL’s owners’ and directors’ test, the league had approved the sale to NLF by International Entertainment Corporation (IEC).

The EFL’s test and takeover process, supposedly determines that a new owner has the money to buy a club and support it financially for at least the remainder of the season and the whole of the following season.

Less than a month later and a week since Au Yeung was announced as the majority owner, the club had appointed the administrators Gerald Krasner, Paul Stanley and Dean Watson of the insolvency practitioner Begbies Traynor.

It transpired that Yeung had actually been in touch with these just a few days before the takeover in June.

More than a strong rumour of a bet on Wigan getting relegated was not investigated, nor was there any questions around how a banned director and bankruptee in the form of Wai Kay Au Yeung was ever allowed to become the owner of the club.

But now Begbies Traynor were in the hot seat, Latics were at the beck and call of three people that really didn’t have a clue on how to deal with a football club. Several offers came and went in the early days after the Admins rolled in, as the inexperience of Paul Stanley, the arrogance of Gerald Krasner and sheepish Dean Watson frustrated buyers who wanted the club as a going concern. But why would they, at £2500 per day there was no gain for them to sell quickly.

They proceeded to ask too much for the assets, whilst at the same time selling those very same assets off at a fraction of the price they should have gone for. The Supporters club performed never been seen before efforts in raising the funds to get the club to fulfil their fixture, ensuring there was a club to buy in the future.

WASC went further in raising more funds to put together a last resort fans buying option, or if a buyer was found, this money could be used to buy a share in the club for a fans voice on the board. Truly amazing efforts from them, Wigan Athletic supporters as a whole and from the wider footballing and sporting community in the UK.

Lots of time was wasted on a Spanish bid that was never going to go anywhere, as we stated here on Cockney Latic back in November. This was confirmed before Christmas and we entered the New Year starting all over again. The Admins by now were not even turning up at the stadium, in stark realisation that they had ruined a fantastic football club.

Paul Stanley’s first interview had him saying “I’ve been doing this job for 35 years and I’ve never seen anything like this”

“Wigan Athletic is a well run club and will no doubt find new owners in no time”

So why then go on to play football manger and make it as hard as possible for someone to buy it?

The process has been a shambles and I as a football fan would not wish it on any club, especially with these inept, full of BS wasters.

We can only hope that we now have that glimmer to see us move away from administration in time for the team to get the necessary help and support it needs to stay in this league and push on next season.

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