Wigan Athletic in admin: Owner test 'frankly pretty limited', admits EFL chief

While Paul Cook's men continue to fight on the field, the club is just about keeping its head above water off the field, having been placed into administration by the owners last Wednesday.

Next Leader Fund LP only assumed control from International Entertainment Corporation a month ago - leading to questions of whether the EFL's vetting process is stringent enough.

Parry, though, insists the organisation's hands are tied.

"Could it have been done differently with hindsight? Everything could have been," he told the Wigan Post.

"But frankly within the confines of our regulations, there's not an awful lot more that could have been done.

"There weren't any obvious red flags, and this is quite an unusual one.

"This wasn't a new owner coming out of the blue, the previous owners - who'd been there for two years and put £24million in - were clearly connected.

"There was nothing that suggested a major red flag, and we ought to be massively concerned about this, that or the other.

"This was more of an evolving change in the partnership, someone coming in along with Stanley Choi.

"It wasn't somebody brand new who appeared out of nowhere."

Parry also acknowledged the much-maligned 'fit and proper person's test' - or, to give it its proper name, the owners' and directors' test - is 'relatively limited'.

"The process has evolved over years, but has quite frankly always been pretty limited in terms of what it's actually looking for," he added.

"It's been criticised for that. Some of that is fair, some of that is unfair.

"But it is not a subjective 'we like the look of this person'.

"It does not tell us if a person is going to be a great owner, if they are going to take Wigan back to the Premier League. That is not our job, and will never be.

"What it is is a relatively limited test which looks at disqualifying conditions - whether people have unspent criminal convictions, if they have taken football clubs into insolvency.

"What it isn't is a deep down look into their suitability...and are they going to be lifelong fans of Wigan.

"You might argue it should be, but quite frankly that goes beyond the resources we would need.

"I'm not trying to make excuses, but we are there to run a football competition first and foremost.

"Part of the responsibility clearly goes on the vetting of the owners. But it does also rely on self-certification.

"We don't have an army, like Interpol, to hunt people down. But by definition, if you've got people from the Far East, it's an awful lot harder to track down their backgrounds than it is with people here in England.

"The amount of publicly-available information is limited. And you also have to recognise there is a balance to be drawn.

"If we had put a limit on the amount of available owners, then we are cutting down the pool of buyers for those who want to sell their clubs.

"That is always the challenge, because it is the clubs who set the rules.

"Whether we like it or not, that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it always will be.

"If anybody wants to say 'that's ridiculous', then fine. But that's democracy, and it's how every league in the world operates.

"When the club owners ultimately approve the regulations, there's always a balance.

"Because of course they care about the league and its reputation - but they are also of the fact they may be sellers one day, and they want to have a degree of freedom in terms of who they sell to.

"It's not perfect, but it's also not completely hopeless.

"It is objective, it's not subjective. It relies on self-certification and a certain degree of honesty and commitment on behalf of those who are supplying that information."