Quote Father Ted="Father Ted"If you think it's low now you should have seen it when Whelan owned the place.
IL has done a great job in turning around the club's finances.
Next years figures should include, hopefully, improved merchandise figures from the new shop, better crowd figures and improved broadcasting revenue over previous contracts.
Wigan RL also has some of the lowest admission prices in SL.'"
You can't compare the turnover when Whelan ran the place to now because of how Whelan ran it. He just funded it out of a big pot of money that came from any income generated by the club which got lumped with other income and if he felt like splashing out £400K on a transfer he just did.
There was effectively no turnover in the conventional sense because it wasn't run as a company but as one of Whelans hobbies if you like. I never saw a problem with that provided money was available for players and it was. The difference now is IL can't or won't bank roll the club and it is run as a proper company. Which is better is a bit of a moot point IMO. I know the RFL are not keen on clubs relying on one individual but in fact that has not changed under IL. Where is Mick Hogan's replacement for example?
Put it this way would you complain if some Arab Sheik came along and did a Man City and built us our own ground, with state of the art facilities , upgraded to Orrell and who knows what else out of his lose change? Or would you try and advance the club out of its own earnings and nothing else?
As to a £4.5m turnover for 2008-9 I thnk that is pretty good. Under the old salary cap rules that would have meant we could spend £2 1/4 million on players wages (50% of turnover) which is about what it was before the flat rate came came in so the turnover should easily fund a squad up there with the other top teams given the salary cap is lower.
Dave