Comfortably Numb

You become numb to the defeats after a while, when you’ve gone so long without anything positive it’s no wonder really. What’s another defeat when you’ve already lost so much since July? And I’m not just talking about losing on the pitch.

So whilst Latics once again lost out on the pitch against Lincoln on Tuesday, it isn’t that that’s the most important battle for the club at the moment.

As with our battle to stay in the Championship last season, it’s secondary in the battle to save this wonderful football club that means so much to all of us.

We are now ten weeks from the potential takeover being announced and in that time the Spanish led consortium have so far failed to satisfy the EFL’s requests for information.

Last week saw a lot of anger being directed at Wigan Council, a lot of that anger came from the rumours surrounding the lease on the ground.

One of the things that was said to be holding up the deal was that our new prospective owners had wanted to raise the level of rent paid by Wigan Warriors.

Though Wigan Council own the lease on the land that the Stadium sits they don’t have the power to withhold a lease on those terms, and as stated by the Wigan Council Chief Executive Alison McKenzie-Folan they wouldn’t interfere in something like that even if they could.

So the hold up with the takeover isn’t the council, and as such all eyes are back on the EFL. At the time of writing The Sun’s Alan Nixon has revealed that as rumoured Leganes owner Felipe Moreno is one of the major players in the consortium.

Along with friend of this paper Jose Miguel Garrido Cristo and his relation Antonio Garrido Papadopaulo, interestingly enough (and you have to take every report with a pinch of salt) Garrido Cristo himself is the issue and has yet to pass EFL tests. Whilst there are still question marks over the groups funding.

This is on the back of news reports from the weekend revealing the backer from the Darren Royle and Ray Ranson bid to be banker Jonathan Rowland. Until he came out and denied that a few days later – though he follows Latics on twitter and no other football clubs. Make of that what you will.

As always there’s more entertainment in Wigan than an episode of Coronation Street – the only thing is the storylines are far more outlandish than anything Corrie could ever come up with.

Whilst the drama rages on there is a football club on life support, a football club that has been systematically torn apart over the last five tortuous months.

On the pitch we are simply a shell, a hard earnt draw against Bristol Rovers and a battling display against Lincoln are simply the best we can hope for currently.

Unless there is real movement off the pitch soon be that with the Spanish finally being passed or administrators ending exclusivity and moving on to another bidder there may not be a Wigan Athletic left come January – that is the very real threat we face.

The Spanish consortium seem to have good intentions, on the face of it their bid sounds reasonable and sensible and indeed they are so far the only party to actually put money down to save the club.

But if their bid has failed to satisfy the EFL after ten and half weeks we simply have to move on. We can’t criticise the EFL for not doing their checks properly over IEC, Choi, Au Yeung and Next Leader Fund but then ask them to pass the Spanish Consortium without satisfying the same checks.

If we somehow end up back in administration again because this group can’t fund us it could kill the club off this time.

I had warmed towards our prospective Spanish owners in recent weeks, and Felipe Moreno has a strong reputation at Leganes. But if the group as a whole can’t get over the line then the administrators simply have to move on and entertain another bid. There is too much riding on this and we’ve already wasted too much time.

Sean Livesey

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