To be fair, the Leeds fans were giving Whelan stick before his comment, he then made it & whilst there was some initial booing the majority seemed to take it as a joke & one that had been made coz they’d been giving him stick
As for the timing of his announcement, I don’t think there’s any conspiracies behind it even if the timing does seem odd as, along with the recent transfer departures, it seems to give off the impression of people jumping overboard as the good ship Latics is sinking
In reality though, Whelan has been preparing his grandson for the role for several years now & Whelan has been taking a less active role in the running of the club during that time – I read in the lead up to his ban that the club wouldn’t contest any ban as due to the fact Whelan wasn’t signatory to any transfers & many other key areas that it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to the running of the club.
In light of his reducing involvement, the controversy surrounding his appointment of Mackay & his subsequent comments when (as Standish points out) the journalists led him up the garden path & then hung him out to dry when he made the comments that they hoped (& probably knew) that he’d make have just led him to think that now is the time to officially announce he was stepping down.
If I’m honest, the timing does strike me as odd as I’m sure that it could have waited until the summer but if the club does get relegated he’d have only have been accused of jumping ship anyway instead of hanging round & leading a charge back up the leagues
