Admin report closes door on Wigan Athletic chapter

The administrators have filed their Executive Summary of their running of Wigan Athletic - one of their final duties before drawing a line under the most eventful period in the club's history.
The DW StadiumThe DW Stadium
The DW Stadium

It's a statutory report to creditors, which will also be filed in Court and at Companies House.

The admins have already concluded their involvement of the football club, following the recent purchase by Phoenix 2021 Limited.

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They will shortly change from admins to liquidators of the old club company to agree claims and pay creditors, which will be the final act in a story that Hollywood would have thrown out for being too far-fetched.

The report reads: "Given the nature of the business of the company, being a football club, the administrators appreciate that the report will also be read by fans of the club, and therefore set out below an executive summary of what they tried to achieve and the success of each objective:

* Survival of the Club (achieved);

* Fulfil the fixtures in 2019/20 season (achieved);

* Appeal against the 12-point deduction imposed by the EFL on entering administration (case brought but unsuccessfully);

* Avoid a further 15 point deduction for not meeting specified financial requirements of the EFL (achieved);

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* Pay staff and player wages for June 2020 and deferrals from earlier months (achieved);

* Pay staff and player wages from July 2020 until the point the club was sold (achieved);

* Resolve position with the Hong Kong-based owner and largest creditor (debt £24m), to include waiving any entitlement to dividend to enable other creditors to be paid, and to allow other funds from connected companies (which would otherwise be paid to the owner) to be used to pay the administrators’ fees, so the football club could enjoy a free administration which would make the purchase price lower and therefore would ensure the survival of the club (achieved);

* Start the 2020/21 season and either complete the season or leave club in a position where the season could be completed, avoiding relegation (achieved);

* Pay football creditors in full (c.£7m) (achieved);

* Find buyer for club (achieved);

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* Pay minimum 25p/£ to non-football creditors (funds ringfenced to achieve this);

* Repay the soft loan of c.£170k made by the Official Supporters Club to the administrators which enabled emergency payments to suppliers to enable the remaining fixtures of the 2019/20 season to be completed (achieved);

* Move company to liquidation to agree and pay creditor claims (to be actioned following release of this report)."

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