MattyB wrote:
IL has said a couple of times now that whilst he will support the soccer where he can he has no interest in owning and running it.
Not initially. He said he was interested in bringing us all under one sporting partnership. Then I think he saw just how financially unviable they are, and I believe has only been interested in the stadium and finding a partner to take on latics since.
This is their most significant difficulty imo. Without the stadium they are worthless as they are not a sustainable business at any level....partly owing to the fact footballers are grossly overpaid at all levels to the detriment of the game, but also because there isn't the same level of interest in football in the town as there is in other areas, at whatever level they are competing.
So they are perennially competing with clubs who have much bigger resources due to larger fanbases. They are essentially a wakefield of football, and will always average 5-10k less crowd than every other team in their division, and run at a loss as a result.
In the championship they were losing 1m quid a month, hence why they collapsed as soon as the chinese stopped putting money into them. Even with their recent streamlining, and not much more than an academy team, they are projected to lose 5 mil over the next two years.
This means they are only attractive to two groups of people;
i) Rich fans - As a flight of fancy. Problem is, beyond Whelan there are not many interested in wigan athletic with that sort of money
ii) Overseas investors - essentially as a tax dodge, taking advantage of low UK corporation rates. I believe this was the reason the spanish were interested - 25-30% tax levels in spain vs 15% in the uk. Very easy to use latics as a vehicle to make money, offsetting their losses by running overseas profits through the football club ie/ inflated player transfers would have been easy for the spanish. I suspect this is also the reason the chinese bought in.
The problem is we're tied to that mess, because the stadium is tied to latics.....a conscious exit strategy by whelan, who knew as an entity latics were worthless, and it was only by selling them with the stadium would he realise any real value.
The chinese didn't buy a football club, they bought a stadium and a tax saving vehicle for 20million, but even they underestimated the huge hole latics' losses would cause and the impact this had on their entire group value....hence the offload and plunging them into administration.
