I asked Brian Simpson MEP Wigan a few questions regarding the JJB stadium and these are the answers from the Chief Exec at Wigan Council


These are the true facts of the JJB from planning stage to ownership
The Council owns the land The Council granted a 99 year lease to Wigan Football Company LTD(Trading as the JJB stadium)for the use of the at Robin Park comprising the JJB Stadium and Surrounds from the 4th August 1999.The lease remains in place and specifies that the Stadium be made available for all the home fixtures of Wigan Athletic Football Club LTD and Wigan Football Club(Wigan Warriors)
Who owns the Stadium
85%of the shares of Wigan Football Company LTD are owned by Whelco Holdings [a company controlled by Dave whelan and his family]and 15%by the Council. The Council has the wright to to appoint a Director-currently David Smith,executive Director of Business Support Services,although the Chairman of the Board Mr Whelan has yet to call a formal meeting of the directors and takes all the key decisions
Two 25 year licenses were granted by Wigan Football Company LTD to Wigan Athletic FC and to Wigan Football Club LTD.Both clubs are recquired to work with their respective governing bodies to ensure that there is no clash of fixtures.The agreement with the clubs provides that "The Company [ie the stadium company ]shall be entitled in its absolute discretion in the event of a conflict of fixtures whether the Club shall be entitled to use the Stadium on any particular day"
Planning application
The planning permission was granted for a 25.000 seater stadium ,carparks and ancillary features.There are no specific conditions in the grant of the planning application that refer to dual use.In the committe report reference is made to to then plan to bring OrrellRUFC and Wigan Athletic to the new stadium .Subsequently plans changed ,but this did not require a revised planning application.
Public access to planning application
The application was conducted in Public
Debates for commercial parts of the transaction were held in private ,but the minutes recording of the decisions were made public.District Audit [the councils external auditors ]and the Valuation Office Agency were involved in independently scrutinising and verifing financial and valuation aspects of the transactions.
How was the Stadium funded
Whelco Holdings provided the initial £25.5 milion to construct the Stadium and Whelco has provided a further £6 million in loan capitol to undertake further works suach as the hospitality facilities in the North,East and South stands .English partnership provided grant funding of some £990.000 to relocate the storm water tanks located under what what is now the East Stand of the stadium to their present position between the canal and the River Douglas .No Council money was provided.

Now the facts are in the public domain the highlighted ones seem relevent to the on going partnreship of Wigan Athletic and Wigan Warriors and IMO its time for DW and IL to sit round the table and discuss along with the FA and RL.In this day and age with all the technology and a bit of give and take from both parties to achieve this.

I have also got a copy of this letter from Brian and asked a few more questions on its contents that he has forwarded back to the Chief exec of the council. Jaws you missed the bit that I have highlighted in bold, what it actually states is that the conflict will arise on any particular matchday. IMO the day before or the day after isn't any particular match day.

It has cleared up a lot of queries I had.

Cant believe the Stadium has been open nearly 10 years and have not had a formal Board meeting.???????????

Whelans in charge

One of the things we should be working on, and I will be working on, will be to get Council involved in forcing Whelan to have regular board meetings. They - and therefore WE own 15% of the Company!

the bit about the chairman not calling any board meetings stinks.
DW may as well change his name to ADOLF

surely there is something in the company minutes to have a plan of regular board meetings??
one man taking all the decisions for a board is nothing short of dictatorship.

nowt do with topic.....but im glad whelans not the prime minister, otherwise i fancy he would abolish democracy

Majority shareholders can do whatever the fook they like

And that is the crux of this issue that won't be solved anytime soon, perhaps not even when he is no longer with us.

Firstly Jaws u really need to get a spell checker m8. Great piece of information nearly let down by that.

It seems to me as though the original contract was drafted by idiots though.

If the Council granted the lease on condition that both Wigan RL and Wigan Athletic could play their home games there, then surely Whelan has broken that covenant with his recent actions?


Secondly if the Company (i.e. Whelan) has the ability to decide :

a. If a "conflict" is taking place
b. What the result of that conflict should be

(as seems the case)

Then I can't see how that is compatible with the grant of the Lease by the council.


I know Wigan council is probably one of the worst in the country, but even by their standards, this seems a mess.

Perhaps Whelan and the council have agreed to some details of the lease being "evolved" over the years?

It doesnt seem clear if whelco is able to resolve fixture 'conflicts' within a number of days of each other or just on the same day

We need to know this as thta is the key bit of info.

For all we know when whelan sold the club he could of added more conditions to the clubs contracts to give latics more space around their matches

The council are under the impression that its matchday conflict. I read that as on the same day.

Do we have legal people on here? I am sure that we do.