Nice opinion piece. It’s clear you detest Latics which is your prerogative of course but you won’t find this ‘tichead’ who is also a staunch rugby fan giving any praise whatsoever to the administrators for how they’ve handled things.

Don't think they'll get any credit from Lisa Nandy either

The parliamentary privilege speech will be very interesting.

That may have led to this interview

Don’t detest Latics at all. But I detest the huge chip on the shoulder many of their fans have.

My point was the admins had an almost impossible task, one that beat admins at bury and Macclesfield, despite Latics carrying more debt and ongoing losses than those clubs.
So I don’t really get what the criticism is about! Yes they haven’t given detailed information but that’s the nature of the beast and dealing with NDAs. Beyond that they’ve tried everything and finally found a buyer at the 11th hour.

Very difficult to sell if what you’re selling isn’t very attractive and a substantial loss making proposition. Bahranis are essentially signing themselves up for 5mil losses a year for likely league two football, just to stand still. If they’re ambitious for future promotion even more. Got to have deep pockets for that.

What have the admins done that can actually be substantiated?

Latics have been ran the exact same way as we are. Accounts are totted up at the end of the season and the owner covers any gaps. If IL does what their owners did then we will be no better off and with no stadium or assets in a steuggling sport we won't be a very good sale either aside from our name so people in glass houses etc.

Ok ill bite, if they are legit and done the best for the club, why didnt they accept IL's bid as it was more than they sold it for? 4 months later when they have got all they can from it have they sold it for less than the bids that were tabled in Dec/Jan?

Very different context tho. IL generally covers operating losses (if there are any) of a couple of hundred thousand a season. Latics are still haemorrhaging money at a rate of 15k per week, 5mil per season, down from over a million a month.
Two very different situations. We are largely financially stable.

That’s exactly my point! IL bid was just for the ground. He was initially interested in Latics and a ‘sporting partnership’ but I expect saw what a bottomless pit of money they were and how they’d be a huge risk to him and WRL and balked.
The admins were only willing to do a deal on the stadium if the purchaser took on the burden of the football club and their 4-5mil per year running losses, hence leneghan couldn’t continue as there were no willing parties to take that risk.

Had the admins been willing to sell the ground alone they’d have got more than 2.3mil for it. The fact they didn’t shows they went far beyond the call of duty trying to save the football club for the community. If I were a creditor I’d be royally peeved at getting 25p on the pound as it’s obvious if they’d have liquidated the returns would have been better.

he also had a buyer for the club and not ground with him so was the whole package, bear in mind were they not selling the club for £1, the stadium losses werent far away from the footballs losses and will be more as it needs 5-10 million spending on it, so IL's bid was for both in reality and for more money....so why again did they not accept it?

Not if IL pulls the plug. Don't forget the plug was pulled when their income was £0.

As far as I'm aware, Latics paid all of their non football creditors every season (I know one of them) and their football creditors were paid on time as agreed. Staff were paid on time every time (again, I know someone who worked at the stadium) They spent more than they brought in (the owners must have agreed the budgets) but so does every club. Some of the clubs in the championship are really bad financially.

We will never know about the admins because they answer to nobody, but Lisa Nandy mentioned parliamentary privalege on a podcast this week and then days later that article came out. Sounds like someone could be trying to get their 2p in first. Or maybe their £2m.

Although the key point being is that there is a huge difference between plugging a gap of £5-12 million per season for latics, to 1-200,000 per year for Wigan? If Lenghan left tomorrow we wouldn't be bankrupt, we would just need to cut cloth or find other ways of increasing revenues. Its likely that without lenghan's input, we'd have one or two less big signings to ensure we were operating at break even, and would be at top 5-6 team, rather than a top 1-2. For latics, its difficult to find where that sustainable point lies outside of the premiership? Football is a very different proposition, particularly when you have a small fanbase.