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On another main forum thread Standish helpfully posted a link to Companies House’s site and the club’s accounts. What is of course interesting is that you can look at all sorts of information about companies’ financial set-ups.
It is interesting that under Wigan Rugby League Club Limited we can easily see that Dave Whelan was a director of the rugby club from 9 Feb 2000 to 1 Dec 2007.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00174692/officers?page=2The reason I find this useful to have in black and white, is that also for the company we find this – a very clear advance from Tesco to the rugby club under the terms of a contract of sale dated 27 Feb 1997, ie 3 years before DW came onto the Warriors board.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00174692/charges/VIFaAZ_tFALDenurDBX7jPHsDAUI know we’ll never persuade the cuckoos that DW didn’t sell the ground under them purely so he could build the (then) JJB, but it’s not based on people’s faulty memories, but proper financial public documents.
On another main forum thread Standish helpfully posted a link to Companies House’s site and the club’s accounts. What is of course interesting is that you can look at all sorts of information about companies’ financial set-ups.It is interesting that under Wigan Rugby League Club Limited we can easily see that Dave Whelan was a director of the rugby club from 9 Feb 2000 to 1 Dec 2007.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00174692/officers?page=2The reason I find this useful to have in black and white, is that also for the company we find this – a very clear advance from Tesco to the rugby club under the terms of a contract of sale dated 27 Feb 1997, ie 3 years before DW came onto the Warriors board.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00174692/charges/VIFaAZ_tFALDenurDBX7jPHsDAUI know we’ll never persuade the cuckoos that DW didn’t sell the ground under them purely so he could build the (then) JJB, but it’s not based on people’s faulty memories, but proper financial public documents.
Nice one gl I doubt it will change the opinions of those both Latics and Gypos fans who see Mr Whelan as the devil incarnate.
Its common knowledge that Jack Robinson was the chief architect in the financial problems that Wigan had. Whelan only became unpopular when he prevented a play-off fixture from taking place not long after he’d sold up.
That said, I did find the latest WAFC annual report interesting. Particularly page 23 – para 20. It seems the Latics have a 25 year lease to play at the DW.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00270043/filing-history
Its common knowledge that Jack Robinson was the chief architect in the financial problems that Wigan had. Whelan only became unpopular when he prevented a play-off fixture from taking place not long after he’d sold up.That said, I did find the latest WAFC annual report interesting. Particularly page 23 – para 20. It seems the Latics have a 25 year lease to play at the DW.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00270043/filing-history
And who is that lease with?
Ah yes……WIGAN ATHLETIC.
It’s called business.
On another main forum thread Standish helpfully posted a link to Companies House’s site and the club’s accounts. What is of course interesting is that you can look at all sorts of information about companies’ financial set-ups.It is interesting that under Wigan Rugby League Club Limited we can easily see that Dave Whelan was a director of the rugby club from 9 Feb 2000 to 1 Dec 2007.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00174692/officers?page=2The reason I find this useful to have in black and white, is that also for the company we find this – a very clear advance from Tesco to the rugby club under the terms of a contract of sale dated 27 Feb 1997, ie 3 years before DW came onto the Warriors board.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00174692/charges/VIFaAZ_tFALDenurDBX7jPHsDAUI know we’ll never persuade the cuckoos that DW didn’t sell the ground under them purely so he could build the (then) JJB, but it’s not based on people’s faulty memories, but proper financial public documents.
He wasn’t on the board when CP was sold because they wouldn’t agree to his proposal. Pretty much common knowledge.
Wigan RL wouldn’t entertain Whelan at the time of the CP sale and remember it was sold a few years before they left there. Indeed the owners at the time had no alternative but to sell because of the financial mess they were in and sold in the hope that Bolton would agree to them sharing the Reebock.
Wigan RL wouldn’t entertain Whelan at the time of the CP sale and remember it was sold a few years before they left there. Indeed the owners at the time had no alternative but to sell because of the financial mess they were in and sold in the hope that Bolton would agree to them sharing the Reebock.The board wouldn’t entertain DW because they were getting a better deal from Tesco. They believed they could build their own stadium in Wigan and share with Bolton until it was built. That was knocked back so they were homeless until Whelan offered them the stadium.
All detailed here pretty much http://wigan.rlfans.com/fusion_pages/index.php?page_id=48
So here’s my question:
Did any money from the sale of Central Park go into Whelan’s coffers – either for the building of JJB Stadium or financing of Wigan Athletic.
I had one of the other parents at my son’s rugby club claiming that the sale of Central Park part-funded the JJB, and therefore Wigan RL were well within their rights to feel aggrieved when they are forced to move their games.
The other parent in question is a doctor (my son plays Rugby Union naturally…) and obviously a bright chap, and is father is a retired accountant, so I played it coy and said ‘I’m sure that’s not right’ just in case I was way off the mark.
But correct me if I’m wrong:
Whelan took control of Wigan RL after the JJB had been built, and surely, considering the RL club was in such a dire financial state when Whelan took over, the money from the sale of Central Park didn’t come as part and parcel of the deal to buy the club?
Surely that money had been swallowed up by debts and/or paid out to the previous owners?
The money from the sale AFAIK went to pay the debts and the rest was swallowed by the board who all strangely left within weeks.
The funding for the JJB came from Sport England, Wigan Council and DW.
The money from the sale AFAIK went to pay the debts and the rest was swallowed by the board who all strangely left within weeks.The funding for the JJB came from Sport England, Wigan Council and DW.
A large chunk of Dave Whelans’ portion was raised by Wigan Athletics’ sale of Springfield Park, and that portion was a lot more than what was put in by Wigan Council and Sport England combined.
Does it really matter who paid what or who owns what as long as the future of the clubs in the long term is not hampered by either one being at the DW?. It works for most of the time and with better fixture planning should work all the time. Obviously the most important thing is the Latics to me and as long as we are not put in any difficulties by the other lot ill live with them being there. At the end of the day the town has a modern stadium which should be used by both in the very long term which goes towards securing the future for Wigan sport.
Well said. It only matters to those who hold a grudge longer than an Afghan Warlord.
Thankfully the vast majority have accepted that its a dual purpose stadium, owned by a company set up by Mr Whelan for that purpose, and both tenants work together when there are fixture clashes. There was a recent change of a rugby fixture, and I recall Latics bringing a league game at home to Charlton forward to a Friday night so a World Club Challenge game could be played at the weekend.
No big deal really.
Does it really matter who paid what or who owns what as long as the future of the clubs in the long term is not hampered by either one being at the DW?. It works for most of the time and with better fixture planning should work all the time. Obviously the most important thing is the Latics to me and as long as we are not put in any difficulties by the other lot ill live with them being there. At the end of the day the town has a modern stadium which should be used by both in the very long term which goes towards securing the future for Wigan sport.It obviously matters to some of the Warriors supporters who are claiming they have rights because they part-funded the building of the stadium!
I was simply asking if anyone knew if there was any truth in this theory.
Anyone with more than half a brain cell knows that the JJB was already being built (if not completed) when Whelan bough the RL club & had them as tennants rather than Orrell RU as was originally proposed.
The money from the sale of Central Park went into pying off their debtors who were considerable at the time to the extent that their future was looking precarious
That is fact & only needs a quick google search to see when the building began & when Whelan purchased the RL club to confirm thatOn the flip side, a friend of mine did a post grad course in Football Administration at Liverpool John Moore’s & (as it was around the same time) he did his thesis on the building of the JJB stadium – he was given access to all the info & met with the council & Whelan on numerous occasions.
Anyway I happened to be whinging one day about how Latics were limited to a 10k capacity at the new groung whilst the Warriors were allowed many more not long after it opened & said that seeing as how Latics gad part funded the cost of the stadium through selling Springfield Park it was unfair that we were being punished in terms of the lower capacity. Whilst taking the pish about the lower capacity (he’s a Bolton fan) he did say that no money from the sale of either stadium went towards the cost of building the new one. It all went into each club’s coffersLike someone else has said, it was Sport England, the football foundation, the council & Whelco who funded the building of the JJB not Latics & not Warriors either
I’ve posted this a few times now on this forum but do so again for those who may have missed it.
The Sale of Central Park
The introduction and move to summer rugby in 1996 saw Wigan become emerged in financial difficulty. They had built up debts of £3 million and the club’s board members decided the answer to the financial problems was to sell Central Park.
Local Businessman Dave Whelan, owner of Wigan Athletic Football Club, wanted to buy Central Park and have Latics share the ground with the Warriors. He offered £4.5m for the ground and pledged to spend a further £12.5m to turn it into a 20,000 all seater stadium for both clubs. Shareholders had voted for the idea but the Wigan board had another offer to consider from the Tesco Supermarket chain, which was rumoured to be closer to £10 million. If the Tesco offer was accepted, Wigan would be homeless. The idea was that Wigan would share with Bolton Wanderers’ new Reebok Stadium, which at the time was being built.
Central Park was the historic home of Wigan Rugby League and the fans were outraged at the suggestion of Wigan moving four miles out of town to Bolton’s Reebok Stadium.
In late February 1997 news emerged that Wigan were holding talks with Bolton about a ground share. Dave Whelan responded to the news by offering to virtually wipe out the club’s debts within 48 hours. In early March Tesco increased their offer to buy Central Park to £12.5 million and news broke that the ground sale was to “go-ahead”. Fans held a protest outside Central Park ahead of a pre-season friendly against Castleford whilst other fans chose to boycott the game. Some fans even travelled down to Tesco Headquarters and protested there! The Wigan fans simply did not want the club to move to Bolton, even if it was for a temporary period. They could not believe the board could sell the ground without a permanent new home being in place.
The Wigan board was made up of four people, Jack Robinson, Arthur Thomas, Tom Rathbone and Melvyn Leatherbarrow (aka John Martin). They had a vote over Whelan’s offer and Martin, who ran the Riverside Club at Central Park, was the only member of the board who voted for it. The other three voted against as they were holding out for an increased offer from Tesco and thus seeing us move out of the town to Bolton. Following the vote Martin resigned has he had become frustrated by the board’s apparent lack of urgency to agree the Whelan plan despite shareholders voting in favour of the move.
As the month wore on over 200 disgruntled shareholders met to discuss the controversial decision to sell Central Park to Tesco. They also backed a petition calling for the removal of chairman Jack Robinson and Mick Rathbone from the board immediately. Into May 1997 and shareholders had decided they wanted to oust Jack Robinson as chairman. A shareholder’s action group claimed the board sold Central Park to Tesco without consultation after previously agreeing to accept a rescue package from millionaire Dave Whelan. Former player Phil Clarke was offered to the shareholders as the man to lead the ousting bid. The group’s next move will be a circular to the club’s 1500 shareholders seeking support for their attempt to remove Mr Robinson and his vice-chairman Tom Rathbone at an Emergency General Meeting on May 20.
A week before the shareholder’s EGM, Wigan unveiled details of a proposed new super stadium. But critics of the board feared that if the team moved out of town to Bolton Wanderers’ new stadium at Horwich they will never return to Wigan. Robinson had met the shareholders’ action group that week but their spokesman Ernie Benbow said at the time that “he was unable to give any categorical assurances about a site in Wigan.”
At the same time Dave Whelan unveiled plans to build a new 25,000 seater stadium for Wigan Athletic at Robin Park but he refused to open ground share negotiations with the Wigan board after the collapse of his Central Park rescue package earlier this year.
On 20th May Wigan shareholders held the EGM and Jack Robinson survived, for now. Robinson won a vote of confidence 484 to 400 while fellow board member, Rathbone held on by 489 to 407. So, Robinson was still chairman but Wigan was still homeless. The wrangling was far from over.
June 1997 saw the Wigan team embark on month long trip down under for the World Club Challenge. The trip had quietened the ground move saga but as they returned Jack Robinson faced a new vote of confidence from the shareholders. A newspaper reported that an associate gathered proxy votes for the original EGM in May by fraudulent methods. The paper claimed someone was instructed to fill in forms for shareholders who were believed to have died so they could be used as votes in favour of the two Wigan directors. Robinson reacted by saying “They (the claims) are totally untruthful. This is just part of a smear campaign which has been going on by a certain group of people who want me out of the club.”
On August 19th 1997 Jack Robinson and Tom Rathbone resigned from the Wigan board. Then Wigan Coach Eric Hughes revealed that the pair had their homes damaged and their lives threatened. Following the resignations the Rugby Football League’s financial department were called in by the club to investigate its cash flow position. Arthur Thomas was the only remaining board member left so it was he who became temporary chairman. With Robinson gone John Martin, who earlier had resigned from the board, offered to ease the club’s financial problems with a £750,000 interest free loan. But the offer was conditional on the Warriors staying in Wigan and rejecting a temporary move to Bolton. He made the offer to bide the club time to negotiate a deal to move to the proposed Robin Park stadium with Wigan Athletic on a permanent basis.
It was finally announced on October 29th 1997 that Wigan would not be moving to the Reebok Stadium. Mike Nolan, who owned finance and car leasing businesses in Wigan, took over as chairman of the club from Arthur Thomas. He was joined on the board by John Martin who returned after his row with the old regime. Tesco agreed to let the Warriors stay on at Central Park until the end of 1999, when they would then join up with Wigan Athletic at their new stadium which was about to be built at Robin Park.
This article was posted on the “Cherry and White Independent Wigan RLFC Website” as part of an article documenting the life and times of Wigan RLFC at Central Park.
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