Wigan Athletic: The 12th Man - "I won’t give up, because not a single one of us can afford to, and none of us will..."

Paul Middleton: :

The last seven days have been exhausting for all Latics fans. The emotional drain of seeing your club go into administration is, in itself, considerable. But when you throw in the circumstances we’ve seen this week – everything from allegations of betting the club will be relegated and potentially dodgy loan arrangements, to directors being sacked for refusing to vote in favour of administration in order to swing the vote – it goes to another level. There’s probably nothing I can add to what will be said elsewhere in this column, if I’m honest. Except to say the outpouring of support, whether just wishes of good luck or actual financial contributions, has made it an incredibly emotional time. It feels like the entire football world sees our current situation for what it is – a deliberate attempt by an unscrupulous owner to squeeze what they can from a club they know nothing about. A £24million loan, to be repaid at 8 per cent interest which will then rise to 20 per cent if not repaid within 12 months. For a club already losing £400,000 a month, Stanley Choi – who is undoubtedly the real villain of the piece – has wilfully put the club’s very survival in jeopardy. And let’s not forget IEC report only £38million of assets themselves, despite the personal wealth of the individuals in charge. They are also under investigation by tax authorities regarding two of its subsidiaries. It would be funny, were it not so terrifying, that IEC managed to buy a football club, transfer the ownership essentially to itself, and all while loaning itself the money to do so and dictating punitive repayment terms. So where are the EFL and their Fit and Proper Persons Test in all this? Nowhere, it seems. The test has often been exposed as unfit for purpose, and yet no example is as glaring and obvious as Latics being put into administration by a man who has owned the club for just five weeks. The EFL are as complicit in this as if they put the club into administration themselves. My entire adult life, I’ve been in one fight or another. But whether fighting as a fans’ representative, as a union official, as a political activist or just someone who thinks principles should be defended, I’ve never felt the personal fear I feel now. I have, and will again, contribute to the cause with whatever money I can spare. I can also try and expose what’s gone on, along with other Wigan sleuths who have done an amazing job of looking into Choi, Kenneth Kay and IEC. But ultimately every single decision to do with our club’s future will be taken by someone else, without consultation from the likes of me. I won’t give up, because not a single one of us can afford to, and none of us will. We’ve made the national and international press, and we’re represented on TV, radio and podcasts the length and breadth of the media. The administrator has praised Latics fans for their absolute commitment to the cause, and everybody in and around football, it seems, is Wigan. As a result, there are investigations into the conduct of Choi, Kay and IEC. Would all that have happened without Latics fans coming together and refusing to back down from the fight? Possibly not. We all know how football and its authorities can be very fickle friends. They say we should learn from history or we will be bound to repeat it. This is an historical moment, for Latics and for football. Let’s see what we learn.

Statto:

Well firstly it’s heartbreaking to see so many good people have been made redundant. Saturday’s game at Brentford, well I couldn’t have been prouder of being a Latics fan. The lads went onto the pitch and gave it everything, but were beaten by the best football team in the division. Off the pitch, CSI Wigan has gone into overtime, some great investigating into the history of our former owners. Great work too by the Supporters Club with the ‘Let’s Hang On’ fundraising campaign - £100k in just over 24 hours is magnificent. Seeing young kids and fans of other clubs donating brings a lump to the throat. And so to yesterday, and the administrator says we have a few serious bids, then Ian Lenagan comes out publicly to say he’s trying to get a bid together. We don’t know who will be the best bid. But at this moment in time I don’t really care who we have as our owner. I just want to watch my team have a beer with my mates, and have a moan. Stay safe!

Mike Goodman:

What a mess. All the hard work that has gone into the past few seasons under Paul Cook could all be about to be washed away in a matter of days, all thanks to someone allegedly wanting to make a few quid from a bet they placed on the club being relegated. If the rumour the owner wanted to liquidate the club but couldn’t so went down the administration route is also true, then I’m at a loss of what to say on that, it’s staggering. It really hurts when you see what’s going on at the club and it puts things into perspective. The club should never have gone into administration last week, the club should not be having to make people redundant, and the club should not be having to appeal against an unjust and unfair points deduction the EFL simply couldn’t wait to apply (45 minutes after administration was announced). How on earth has this been allowed to happen? The silence from the EFL is deafening, and I only hope it’s as a result of their own internal investigations, aligned with liaising with the senior figures at the club and with the administrators to sort out this mess. The warning signs have been there for some time the ‘fit-and-proper’ person test for new owners is not in fact ‘fit-and-proper’. What happened at Bury should never have been allowed to happen, no lessons were learned by the EFL. At Bolton, the test proved once again to be almost a simple ‘tick box’ exercise, again no lessons were learned by the EFL, and now we’ve been victims of it. Granted Bury and Bolton were in far desperate financial situations in terms of debt owed than ourselves, but we’ve all known for some time we’re reliant on owners to prop the club up and now here we are, our darkest fears realised. The test has to be changed and/or stopped to prevent other clubs falling down the route we have. What’s to stop any owner of a football club looking at what’s happened with us and thinking ‘well, I don’t want to fund X club anymore, I can simply just put the club into administration, walk away and have nothing to do with them anymore, let others sort out the mess’. Things must change to protect football clubs to prevent owners simply walking away. To see fans of other clubs rally round us is phenomenal, those are true football fans. It’s also great to see the Wigan Warriors owner come out and outline his plans to buy the club, something I would support 100, per cent. Here’s hoping we have more positive news on the ownership situation in the coming days and that we still have a Wigan Athletic to support next season.

Paul Hughes:

They say that a week is a long time in politics. But is it really only seven days since we dismantled Stoke? Feelings of euphoria tempered by a sense of what if? How many times had we squandered an advantage in the last 15 minutes of a game or missed a penalty? A more consistent run of form before Christmas allied to our astonishing recent form could have seen us in a play-off position. And then Wednesday, 1pm. So many questions but no answers. Many of us had wondered from the start what a Chinese company expected from a club of Wigan’s size and modest support. Their stated ambition to see us in the Premier League rang alarm bells immediately given our recent history of bouncing between League One and Championship. Who had they spoken to in English football to be convinced that their mission statement regarding Premier League football was a sound one? Was it the Royles, or were they just a front? The rumour regarding our demise being the result of a high stakes bet on our relegation by our previous owner, which was mentioned by the EFL CEO Rick Parry, seems almost too fantastic to be taken as anything but a tall tale. Whatever the outcome of the administrator’s enquiries into this lead, surely WAFC supporters deserved better protection from the EFL in regard of right and proper owner diligence? What purpose is to be served by hitting our club with a 12-point deduction when the ‘new’ owners (with the previous owner also holding a majority stake in the company he sold us to), barely in charge for a month before turning off the taps? Surely, a more nuanced approach is required from the EFL here, given the strong whiff of corruption and their own failure to smell a rat. It’s hard to imagine Saturdays without a game, but I ask myself who could possibly be interested in a club with 8,000 supporters and many millions of debt? I hope I’m wrong, but this feels like the end of the road for us as a league club. How on earth was it allowed to happen and where will it all end for English football?

Martin Tarbuck:

Here he comes with another hare-brained idea. Allow me to tell you about the wall of hope. Firstly, I appreciate a lot of Wigan Athletic supporters have already given incredibly generously to the main fund. This is just an attempt to put another fund raising angle on it. We want to build a wall and/or mural and the bricks of that wall will contain the names of everyone who donates here. We have spoken to the CEO of Wigan Athletic and the administrators, and we believe it is viable for this to be put up in, near or around the ground. It’s also worth noting we are a shared stadium and it is perfectly acceptable for Wigan Warriors fans to do the same. We just ask all Wiganers to understand this is critical for us to do it right now. We want to put the names of people who helped to save the club around the stadium (or wherever Wigan Athletic’s future may lie) to acknowledge people are putting every last penny they have spare in to help save this proud, community football club. We have decided to approach this in three tiers: GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE. You can donate however much you like or can afford but these will cost £2020 for Gold, £202 for Silver and £20 for bronze. Your resulting entry will be sized to reflect your contribution but every name will be listed and you will be contacted in due course including to vote on the final design. If you have £20 to spare, please please help if you can. Maybe donate your match ticket money from the remaining games or your pre or post match beer or petrol costs. Obviously £202 is a lot more money which not many can afford but we are putting this option in so the fund raising is scalable. Finally, I know not many of us have £2,020 lying around, I know I certainly don’t! Yet this is an option for past players, managers and directors who have played a massive part in the Wigan Athletic story over the past few decades. If we can get one former player to donate, many of whom are still playing or have recently played at the top level of the game, then maybe just maybe a few more may also support this cause, a crisis we have never faced before at this football club. This is not “begging”, (and please don’t do so on Twitter, though alerting them to it is fine)! This is giving them the opportunity to put something back into the club that helped them with their careers to help this GREAT football club get back on its feet. Every donation matters whoever you are and however big or small it is. Let us once again, try to dig deeper, share this far and wide and get that wall of hope built!! Thank you! Note: If you need to visualise this, simply google the ‘Brian Bevan Wall’ at Warrington. Wouldn’t it be great to get something similar here to reflect on our greatest battle in years to come? If you wish to donate, then please go to https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/wafc2020-the-next-chapter-a-wall-of-hope

Sean Livesey:

It’s like a nightmare you can’t wake up from. How are we all? Sleeping? No me neither. In a year that currently manages to get worse with every passing week, the last seven days in the life of Wigan Athletic represent some of the darkest days I think I’ve experienced and I say this as simply a supporter – spare a thought for those poor souls whose livelihoods depend on the club and lost their jobs this week. So Latics in administration – week one. How was it for you? After the initial shock of Wednesday’s announcement I’ve moved between anger, to frustration to sheer terror at what lays ahead for our beloved football club. I’m sure we all feel the same, but I’ve been absolutely floored by the amazing response from the fans. We may not be large in number, but I think in the last week we have shown exactly why so many people have such a special affinity with our club. We simply aren’t like other clubs – if you don’t get it you don’t get it – but Wigan Athletic means so much to so many unique people and that has been shown in its droves in the last week. Be it the amazing fundraising efforts, the Sherlock-type investigations in to the murky underbelly of this deal on Twitter, or people lobbying anybody who could possibly raise awareness of what’s happening to our club by any means possible. I was quite worried about what would ever happen to us if we found ourselves in this situation. You could argue having it so good for so long under Dave Whelan had left the club with a soft underbelly. Many clubs in the EFL have had regular battles with their owners and ownership structures over the last quarter of the century. Where we literally had the perfect owner, which desensitises you to some of the more serious issues that can befall a football club. But I’m happy to report all sections of the fan base, be that supporters club and fanzine writers to podcasters and young Tics, all areas of the club have galvanised to pull in the same direction in order to save this institution. So where do we find ourselves today? Compared to a week ago, according to Gerald Krasner we have now had over 50 expressions of interest in to buying the club, which the administrators believe “could lead to three or five very serious offers”. That all sounds quite positive, but let us not forget the perilous position we find ourselves in. Some 75 members of staff many of those who have been with the club for a long time were made redundant on Monday night. Administrators are still only talking about there being a good chance of completing the season – not a guarantee. And as other local clubs have shown more recently, expressions of interest will not automatically become a sale. On the positive side of things, the administrators have confirmed the-12 point deduction will be appealed by the club. While Lisa Nandy and Andy Burnham – who are doing fantastic work in keeping our story high on the national media agenda have been invited to meet with the EFL – who so far have been conspicuous by their absence. Nandy also mentioned her hope those who have lost their jobs could be re-employed if the club is sold swiftly. So some slight glimpses of light in the darkness, but all they are are glimpses. Through no fault of our own, our football club has been torn apart and in the process torn away from us. And it is imperative we manage to salvage it. Whether that is in the Championship or League One, it really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Wigan Athletic still has a football club. We owe it to all of those who fought so hard to keep football and then maintain league football in the town. We owe it to them to do everything we can to ensure Wigan Athletic survive. Apparently there’s a football match tomorrow, but it hasn’t even come in to my thinking. I’m desperate for our club to survive in the Championship. But a football match feels from a different world at the moment. The players came out on Saturday and, alongside Paul Cook, made it clear they wouldn’t be lying down in this battle – and I believe them. All they need to know is that everyone is behind them. If you would like to donate to the ‘Let’s Hang On’ appeal, visit: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/official-wigan-athletic-football-club-fundraiser