Administrators waiting on EFL decision about Wigan Athletic bidders

Administrators in charge of Wigan Athletic have no plans to take the risk of seeking more bidders for the club - as they wait to see if the prospective Spanish owners get the green light from the EFL.
Paul StanleyPaul Stanley
Paul Stanley

Rumours of other interested parties continue to swirl as the EFL carries out its long, drawn out process of due diligence into the consortium which had a bid accepted.

Wigan MP Lisa Nandy has said she is "heartened" that there are others interested waiting in the wings to buy Latics, should the takeover by the Spanish party fall through.

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Administrators last week extended the period of exclusivity with them as they await to see if the EFL grants it their seal of approval.

Co-administrator Paul Stanley, of Begbies Traynor, explained that exclusivity agreement prevents them from talking to any other interested parties in the meantime.

And with the EFL only able to deal with one bidder at a time, it means the drawn-out saga with the Spanish bidders needs to run its course.

Presuming they don't walk away, the administrators must wait for an answer either way from the EFL, which said in a statement last week there were "a number of outstanding issues that required a resolution before this matter could progress".

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Stanley urged caution on presuming other interested bids were better and more attractive, pointing out the club was for sale for several months before the Spanish bid was accepted.

And he said starting the process again with a new party would be a "gamble".

"And I'm not a gambler," he added.

Meanwhile, he says replacing John Sheridan from within is a logical step for Wigan Athletic.

Sheridan, 56, completed his move to fellow League One club Swindon on Friday. He had taken charge of 15 matches at Latics and had been operating on a month-to-month deal.

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First team coach Leam Richardson and academy manager Gregor Rioch are likely to step up and take his place, starting with next Saturday’s home game against Oxford United.

The administrators in charge of Latics are operating on a shoestring and didn’t think it would be fair to appoint an external manager so soon before an expected takeover, in case the prospective new owners want to appoint their own man.

But, in addition, Richardson and Rioch know the current players and Stanley said: “It makes sense to have someone take it internally rather than have someone from the outside who may have different ideas and want different players with different ideas.

“The fact is that many of the players in the first-team have come from the academy, there is more of a holistic approach to the club. The first team were training differently from the academy but now they are all at the same place and it makes sense to have someone who knows the players well and has already coached and managed them for, in some cases, many years.”