Wigan Athletic

It will be 12 points.

From the wording it looks like Wigan will have the deduction this season, if they are not in the relegation zone, which means that they need to be 12 points clear of the relegation to avoid the drop.

If they were relegated, to League One, then the 12 point deduction would be held over until next season.

In reality they cannot avoid the penalty..........unless the EFL change their mind, which frankly would not surprise me. Stand up Dave Baldwin!

The EFL statement, “As a result of Wigan Athletic confirming they have entered into administration, the Club will be subject to a 12-point deduction and, in accordance with EFL Regulations, the timing of the sporting sanction can only be determined once final league placings in the Championship are determined.

If in the event the Club is relegated by virtue of their final position following the conclusion of the Championship season, then the deduction will apply in League One in 2020/21. However, if the Club is not in the relegation places following the final game of season, the sanction will be then be applied to their season 2019/20 total and final league standings amended as appropriate“. https://www.efl.com/news/2020/july/efl-statement-wigan-athletic/

 

I find this entire situation really strange. Wealthy Hong Kong-based owners take over the club 4 weeks ago having done their due diligence before buying the club. Four weeks later they place the club in administration with the strong possibility of getting relegated.

The new owners are either incompetent and didn't do sufficient due diligence before buying the club (which I doubt) or they are trying to engineer a buy-back of the club without any debt (which is risky since somebody else might come in and buy it from under their feet) or they see some value in the club's assets (by which I mean the ground and/or training facilities) and want to sell those assets. There is something not right here.

I hoped they'd have been aware of the financial issues before buying Wigan but didn't want to inject additional cash to prevent administration. That's very weird and will have pricked up the ears of the Administrator.

They were fully aware of the club's financial position, including the outstanding debt due to previous owners, and probably expect those debts to be written off though the Administration. The risk of relegation might be a small price to pay for a debt free club especially if there really are valuable assets to sell and football isn't why they have bought the club.

There's more to come out of this yet.

 

https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/football/wigan-athletic-finances-will-get-sorted-out-administrator-2900623

 

Not sure what the value of the club will be, if it gets relegated. The worst case scenario is that Wigan gets automatically relegated and then starts next season on minus 12 points. With the additional burden of negativity and recrimination, that could lead to them ending up in League 2 the following season.

 

This is getting more complicated and stranger as more facts emerge. The new company (NLF) which owns Wigan is 51% owned by a guy who was a large shareholder in the company which owned it previously (IEC). And NLF is said to have already loaned Wigan £29million since it aquired it. That means that either the debts at Wigan are enormous otherwise why would the owner have to place it in administration with such a line of credit or there are still things to emerge. Maybe the loan never happened? Or maybe there are dodgier things going on?

By the way and despite what many people believe, the EFL does not have a 'Fit and Proper Person Test' (FPPT) as is used elsewhere and implies some capability on the part of the owners to be able to run and manage a football club. Instead the EFL has what it calls the 'Owners and Director's Test' (ODT) which contains absolutely nothing to do with capability and experience in football or even company management but simply that the owner and director hasn't been convicted for some specific breaches of financial and tax law such as tax evasion or fraud and isn't disqualified from being a company director. The list of conditions is quite lengthy but doesn't refer to any competence or capability being required.

That's where the EFL has gone seriously wrong for many years. It really needs a comprehensive 'Fit and Proper Persons' test to check whether those who own our football clubs really know what they are doing from a footballing perspective. Both Rupp and Rahic rightly passed the ODT but I suspect both would have failed a real FPPT!