Wigan Athletic have gone into Administration, because of Covid

[TC's Sporran]

rumour is a multi million pound bet on wigan to go down was placed (by owner?) in the philipines?
and when it looked like wigan werent gonna go down they were put into administration.
almost guaranteeing relegation and a winning bet.

its all over twitter

[SP]

I feel quite sad about this. Always liked Wigan a good club well run by a passionate owner in Dave Whelan. A true footballing gent.

Me too, I've only been there once but the locals were as friendly as ours. The function room for away fans was superb along with the pies.

[Logicalman]

As always the big losers are the clubs loyal supporters, great shame.

You have to feel sorry for the owners of these clubs too. These owners build 25,000 seater stadiums and 24 months out of the premier league they getting average attendance of 9,000 fans.

If an owner has no TV money, no players to sell, only 9,000 loyal supporters per game, and FFP rules limiting the amount he can invest, then how can he possibly afford championship players.

The paper today said that they had new owners last month who are refusing to put any money into the Club. All sounds a bit fishy to me.

Me too!

This part of the story gives great concern:

Administration one month after change in ownership
Until 2018, the club was owned by Dave Whelan, who steered them from the fourth tier of English football to the Premier League in 2005, and they also won the FA Cup in 2013.

Whelan sold the club to Hong Kong-based International Entertainment Corporation in November 2018 and there was a further change of ownership in May when Next Leader Fund took control.

Paul Stanley, Gerald Krasner and Dean Watson of Begbies Traynor have been appointed as joint administrators.

Krasner said in a statement that the suspension of the Championship season because of the coronavirus pandemic has had a "significant impact on the recent fortunes of the club".

However, when asked by BBC Radio Manchester how big an impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on the situation, Stanley said: "I don't think it's played a massive part in terms of the way the club's been run, because the club's been run very well.

"The funding that was due to come in from the owners didn't come in. I've had no contact with the owners and I don't know why the funding didn't come in. It might be coronavirus-related, I just don't know."

My question would be: If the EFL oversee such changes of ownership (Fit & Proper stuff) then how did they not spot this crap was on the Horizon?

The EFL cannot have it both ways, either they take responsibility for due diligence in such transaction, or they sod off and keep well clear of it and just deal with the fall-out (which they do anyways - with some glee - whilst shaking their heads at the owners of such clubs)