I’d say you’re probably right but if you read the Twitter/Facebook comments on IL from Latics fans you get the feeling it isn’t a small number.

Ultimately if IL bought Latics they’d have to grin and bear it, pretty much like we have with the badge (two vastly different scenarios admittedly) and eventually they’d settle down. IL would run them well IMHO and do what’s best for them in the long term. They’d do a lot worse than IL as an owner.

IL isn't buying the club is he? Just the stadium?

Whoever takes over they're going to have to spend an awful lot on the stadium, I called into the club shop before Christmas and the stadium is looking incredibly tired.
No idea if the administrators laid off the ground staff but it needs a massive spring clean asap.

There was some talk a while ago about the Admins refusing even to talk about selling the stadium without the club.

Not sure if they're in a position to say that now, of course.

Our season ticket sales were delayed due to the ticket office being shut at the stadium because of Latics being in administration and in that press release a couple of weeks ago, they said they were going to wait to put them on sale until this Spanish takeover went through and they could use the facilities/systems at the stadium. That is a pretty big job the club now has to think of alternative arrangements for organising the sale of (hopefully) 8,000, 9,000+ season tickets.

Just one example of how it hits the rugby club already.

I think one of the reasons this £25m+ stadium is only currently valued at £2m(?) is its a massive white elephant that generates little income outside of football & Rugby match days (a small Italian Restaurant and a few weddings/party nights in the Marquee aside).

The pitch has to be relayed annually and it currently looks tired as hell as no money spent on it (other than a nice large screen in the corner). Needs massive investment and that's just for a spring clean.

Will IL take that Stadium on alone fully? I'm not sure he will.

He may have no alternative if we don't want to lose our home-base.

We have a great HQ next door, but it only has a training pitch attached.

I agree that it would be a huge cost, but surely a guy like IL would have the capability to put together a group of ambitious businessmen? You're right, the DW is a massive white elephant, but it's seemed underused for many years to me. It was only Whelan's vanity about his precious pitch - which mostly turned to mud the moment Latics got onto it, anyway - that prevented it being rented out for rock concerts and the like. In addition, I'm sure that a lot more could be done with its corporate facilities.

I'm not pretending, by the way, that Wigan Warriors playing there alone is a potential solution. I don't believe it is. But Latics' fate is no longer in their own hands. I wonder ... are there any NW Premier League clubs whose junior teams would like to share in a great playing facility?

Check your PMs

Obviously the current situation makes it incredibly difficult to plan for anything, but like you I think that, should things return to normal, an ambitious business man would see some opportunity there. Conferences, concerts, weddings, parties, charity nights, sportsman's dinners, pantos for the little ones etc.

As stated elsewhere, the stadium isn't as much a white elephant as made out IMO. £1.5 million loss appears stark, but when you look into it, approx.500k of those loses are accounting rather than real losses - depreciation on an asset valued at 22m in the accounts. So real, tangible losses are circa £1m. Not bad when you think a) its been hugely underutilised and poorly run and b) has not sold any naming rights since 2018. Still the DW, whelan last paid for it in 2018.

Most stadium naming rights sell for around half a mil per year, so do that, run it properly with a couple of concerts and business events like Warrington and Leeds do, a loss making facility soon becomes an additional source of income.

Im sure a NW premier league club would be interested in sharing - don't widnes have liverpool reserves for example and united at Leigh etc. Theres lots of options, but keeping latics going is beneficial for all parties. If a deal could be done which secured the stadium AND finds a third party to keep the football club in business, that is what it really needs. If leneghan paid 3mil for the stadium, the football club could probably be bought for a pound, all you need is someone who'll take on the losses - has to be the way forward IMO.

DW is probably too costly for us or latics to run alone.

I think that we should go down the Barcelona route and create a multisports club with Football and Rugby League sections. Then we can invite on board all the other local sports and before you know it we will be a sporting world leader who are the envy of the cash rich Jonny come latelies. Nurse the frog pills please.

Personally I think its a great idea! Buy them and rename them 'AFC Wigan Warriors'





Can you imagine how the ticheads would foam at the mouth!!! Got to be worth 3m of anyone's money......the days when you wish you were rich!

A mess created by a pipe dream of Whelan with support of the Council that Wigan could become a big football town instead of Rugby League.

The capacity of the stadium should never have been more that 20,000 as the vast majoriy of attendances of both clubs since it was built have never been above that figure. Only games against St Helens, World Club Challenge and Internationals in Rugby and some Latic's games when they were in the Premiership have exceeded that figure.

And where is the creator of the mess and the white elephant now, just enjoying a life of leisure in Barbados off his ill gotten gains.

You would think that our elected Councillors would have had more sense!

Not sure why everyone seems to think the DW can be turned into some sort of Madison Square Garden style venue at the flick of a switch. Why would anyone want to come to an open air stadium in sunny Wigan? I can only think of 3 concerts in local stadiums to us in the last 5 years and the two stadiums (Bolton and Leigh) have better links to motorways/major roads than us.

Granted they're a city and more of a famous venue but the weather issue comes into play. The Etihad holds regular concerts as does Old Trafford cricket ground and now Anfield holds them after getting a licence.

I also believe St Helens has hosted one or was scheduled to.

Any body any ideas for the out come if they go into liquidation.

A stadium for sale for next to nothing

If they were liquidated I think it would force our hand and we would HAVE to go for the stadium as opposed to it being an option as it is at the moment.

The problem is, even if latics reformed, football league rules means they'd have to restart in the conference leagues, so theres no way they'd be able to afford to continue to play at the DW.

That would leave us the headache of managing the costs ourselves, which makes the stadium purchase difficult. The ground only really works with two viable teams, and Wigan or Latics would struggle to run that ground alone.

As someone else said, perhaps the reserves of a big NW prem team would be interested in sharing and we could recoup some money that way - A reformed latics could also potentially tenant at the Robin Park arena (athletics stadium next to the ground we now own), so we could also get some contributions that way, but it would be minuscule to rent payable for the DW which they wouldn't be able to afford playing in the conference to crowds around 1k.

Despite the fact that, unlike rugby fans, ticheads would crow and thrive if the rugby were in their situation, it really doesn't help either club for the other to go pop.

Best case scenario for me would be lenghan buying the ground and find a partner who's willing to take them and their debts on for a quid. Diminishes the cost and they may be attractive to a buyer on that basis. They then continue as a going concern in league 2, renting from us. Rent wouldn't be huge as i doubt they'd get more than 4-5k fans max back in that league, so thered be a hit, but it would make it affordable

Plenty of our fans would be loving it. Probably more the younger generation that have been brought up in the Latics PL era and ground changes etc

I wonder how much time will pass before that PL era is looked back on as a bizarre blip, a brief quirk of history that went against all the laws of nature?

Is it not already?

I think some of the Latics fans still fantasise that it can be rekindled. But I reckon they're a shrinking herd.

I think that’s a little harsh. Blackpool would fall into that category but Latics survived a few seasons, getting into major finals along the way alongside Europe and historically winning the FA Cup. Even as an avid Warrior and not in anyway a Latics fan you can’t label their stay as a “bizarre blip”. It was actually quite successful.

The success of the Latics was for a only a short period during the time that that they were successfully climbing the divisions due to Whelan buying players which other clubs of the same level in each divsion could not afford and was carried on into the Premiership with signings equal to some of the other clubs in the division.

However, it all started to went downhill from 2013 when Whelan had acheived his ambition of winning a major trophy and with the Latics being unable to compete with the more richer clubs in the Premiership and beginning to lose money, he got rid of the better players and then did what he had done with his Supermarket and JJB companies when they also started to go in the same way, decided that the time had come to sell the club and the stadium at a profit to himself and retire.

If Whelan cared so much about Wigan, he would have donated the stadium to the people of Wigan in the same way that other multi millionaires have done at other clubs in the country and we would not have the problem about the future of the stadium.

If he didn't sack you then he must have sacked a member of your family.

Oh, and please tell me.....how do joe public own and fund a stadium? If council tax goes up to cover the running costs how would you feel on the matter then?