That's question 1, why they felt the need to exclude or keep loads of people in the dark.

Glad to hear it was a good night tho. It's just mega frustrating, that the club are happy to keep others guessing or waiting.

I'll wait to see what the reasoning was, but I doubt it's worth angering plenty of fans.

Thanks Mate

What was the reasons for the ‘blackout’?
A summary of the salient points would be most welcome

Always good to hear from someone who was actually there.

Just seen on Twitter that the club has asked people in attendance not to mention why there's been a blackout.

Cloak and dagger stuff and we get everyone's favourite journalist to break the news to us peasants tomorrow.

1. What is happening with the stadium lease/Latics rebranding it etc?
2. When will we address the goal-kicking issue?
3. Why bring Mike Danson in? Why didn’t he fund the Wigan Sporting Plan of 2020?
4. How did George Burgess pass a medical?
5. What is the plan to build crowds?
6. What further plans are there to bring in additional revenue?
7. Why is the retail set up so poor (less choice than other Hummel teams, no permanent shop)?
8. Why does our social media team ignore 99% of genuine queries in 2021 digital world?
9. Are the club targeting a world class replacement for J Hastings?
10. What is happening with Orrell?
11. Have our main sponsor gone bust? Have we secured a new one for 2022?
12. Why didn’t the club stream this event?
13. Is he happy with the culture at the club?

I think that will cover most of what people want to know. Also why do the club. Ot want us to be told why there has been a blackout?

My mate was texting me throughout the evening. Transcript of the texts below:

Forum was interesting learned a lot..headlines...Zak is commuting from Yorkshire house and not liking it wife wants to live over there etc..Reading between lines rads is ed off cos he put tons of work in this rehabilitation etc..on the move I reckon

GB treated us really well could of taken us to cleaners financially..but did the right thing..his hip was caused by us..he arrived really over weight so we worked him to get him fit and bust his hip..not sure I buy it

Edwards is a liar and used us to get more money in France..rads is still seething and looked angry when topic was discussed

Guess who makes the decisions on which players we buy?

Ian is one half of the brains trust..rads is the other..really amazed..even wane never chose who we bought..
Also we don't allow any coach to bring there own backroom staff ever..and never will...it costs a fortune cos you've got to sack em all if things got tits up

We (ian and rads) believe party smithies havard Byrne KPP are 'the cornerstone of our pack' for years to come
That's what they said

Lam is walking cos they agreed ..his coaching skills have been poor..he actually nearly said that at one point

Did they say weve got no money?

Not exactly no..were under cap by 140k because gb went cheap...Next year we've got money for top half back and 75k left after that...Thornley confirmed he's coming

Back room coach..peet, or uk based coach mcdermott etc..or aussie no2.. all options

Yes gw was offered the highest contract EVER offered to a player by wigan
He rang rads
Rads said gw said hardest call of his career
Decided wire..new club fresh start
Wire offered..more money..official
IFL and rads both gutted
Cos he's only 75k on our cap
They're hoping jai can come good as a 6

They said young players all want min 100k now or there off...All.got agents and negotiate tough..they said its really hard balancing cost with let em go decision

IFL loves the club..he declared that..he spoke a lot about the lennigan family owning 75% of the club and that danson loves the club he's a private man who could take over if IFL get ill or dies etc..he said I'm getting on a bit

Actually a very eventful one then.

Fail to see why any of that is being kept so hush?

I'm seeing a lot of condensing and smug posts from people that went, all unsurprisingly towing the club's line. Apparently, we aren't capable of disseminating information that's provided via media outlets and not directly from IL's/KR's mouth.

A real low point from IL & KR imo. Makes it look amateurish at best and endorses the opinion that making the rank and file fans wait for scraps of info is a suitable way to operate.

Regardless of 'if the club is in safe hands' or not, I'm done with both of them and their egos.

If I'm honest I would say that's about 75% spot on, with the subjects you've mentioned, there are quite a few topics obviously that you haven't gone into because it was very very detailed

I would say that the 25% I'm saying isn't spot on, isn't because I think its wrong, just that I wouldn't say the context or sentiment of some of the stuff is correctly put.

For example

The IL and Rads dig (as I see it) over them being the ones who choose the players
It was far more complicated than that, and to be honest I agree with what they said.

They said they had the final say, they have people I the coahing set up who identify players, people who have input into the potential signings indie the coa hes and the head coach, but ultimately its those 2 that do the deal and sign off on it.

If I'm being honest, thats not mind blowing imo, in all sports now there are people who identity and complete deals on new players that aren't the Head coach, and the coach/manager has Input into it.

And he never said that those young lads would be the corner stone, he said those players had a big future and would play a big part in the next few years at Wigan. The context was, do we not pay those young lads what they're worth and get rid of 4/5 youngsters so we could bring in 1 big name player

Rads actually asked the audience (and to be fair not one member of the audience answered back) do you think we're doing the right thing? Should we continue to promote youth as we have done over the last 13/14 years.
One member of audience actually said later we have the best youth development in the country.

Thanks for the updates.

Looks a mixtures of face saving lies and honest expectation managing truths so they don’t have to go through the same process again next year.

The Burgess line is total bull, and a few seeds planted for impending departures.

Some very nice management/manipulation by the powers that be, just hope they start using this management on the club rather than attempting to retrospectively manage fans dissatisfaction and underachievement this time next year.

I bet 99% of the fans that were there are rank and file fans?
Certainly I knew 25/30 of the people in attendance and they are no more than normal fans who attended the event.
So to be branded as smug and just toeing the party line imo says more about you than it does about the 100 smug happy clappers at the event
Maybe you should get angry with us and condone having us all filled in like you did with the kendall/refs?

I think tonight was an all time low from the club in terms of communication and ing fans off.

120 or circa 1% of privileged fans fortunate enough to go, the rest of you lower class peasant fans ( yes those season ticket holders that pay good money year in year out) are not worthy of the information at the same time. Even if you do subscribe to Wigan TV. Tough. What is the point in forking out to be treated like this.

APPALLING.

My fault on that one & it wasn't a dig at you. Let me reword it...

I'm seeing plenty of smug posts [uon twitter[/u from fans who went, but don't want to share what was said. All because IL doesn't think we can be trusted to disseminate info via media outlets. That is why he went back to the dark ages and didn't tweet, or stream from the event is it not?

BTW, of course they/you are some of the rank and file fans. Some of the best and most loyal in fact. You aren't however all of them. There's plenty of others that couldn't attend tonight and the 'black out' and subsequent lines on twitter of stuff like "you'll be told in good time", or "it's better this way and you'll thank us later" being pumped from some who went is massively condensing imo.

I'll ask you this - would this happen at any other top sporting club? Would John Henry at Liverpool meet with Liverpool fans and ask for a blackout?

Quite happy at what I heard tonight in the main. Answered most of my concerns.

The summary of what was said above all sounds a bit like the answers have been thought through to limit the damage to Rads/Lenagans reputation. We offered Williams the most money ever but he went elsewhere, we didn’t sign a crocked George Burgess, we injured him through wanting him to be supremely fit and he did us a solid by leaving, Edwards did screw us over and we’ll now finally admit it after 2 years of saying differently and Danson is private and that’s why they haven’t said anything about 25% of the club we support being sold off.

Hard to say without being there but it feels like a missed opportunity to level with the fans, throw their hands up and admit mistakes and just to draw a line in the sand and start again. Maybe it is me not being there that gives me a false impression of the evening though as guys I’d trust to be honest on here like Jukes and Egg Chasing seem happy enough.

As I said earlier I find myself contradictory in my replies, because I can see both side of the argument
The first thing I thought when he explained why there was a media blackout was "so what, people are just going to put it out on twitter/facebook/forums and spill the beans anyway". But then I thought about some of their reasoning for doing it, and can understand why they did.

I am not going to apologise for going, tickets were free, and they didn't all go in a couple of hours and were available the day after I believe so lots of people had the chance to go.

What i will say is that they gave a lot of answers to some difficult situations (mainly by explaining in their presentation).

Anything on the ground situation? Length of lease? Thoughts on the new Latics owners? Their decision to put a Latics only stamp on the ground?

Again, I'm not in any way saying you should apologise for attending or aiming it at you.

I'll stand by my comment tho and some of the stuff on Twitter is condensing at best. I'll not link to it as I believe it's from an ex poster on here, who quite a few people know. There's a lot of guff about the 'media' spinning things tho and it's almost like, we aren't allowed to hear it unless it comes direct from IL's mouth. We're talking about RL journalism btw, he's hardly going to be all over the back papers, or have a yellow breaking story ok SSN.

NK

People will perceive information how they want
If someone wants to be angry at IL and Rads etc then they will be angry pretty much regardless of what is said or not

For example, people (including yourself and jonh who i totally respect as posters) are treating it like some kind of cover up etc and damage limitiation event etc.
Well, if that's the case why didn't they then make it public? Try and win the hearts and minds etc.
My opinion, is because it wasn't, it was an honest appraisal of our situation from many perspectives, and I believe with that honesty there has to be some caution.

Some people will never be happy no matter what, I'm absolutely convinced most of the content will come out, albeit imo maybe not all in the right context etc.

Like I say I wasn’t there (I’m away on holiday), so looking at that bullet pointed summary is hard to really interpret with any real confidence. I can’t say I’m convinced by the Williams or Burgess lines but we move on regardless. Maybe they said more on Danson than posted above but if not, I’d really want more than saying he’s private and us waiting in the wings. I’d have liked info on his buy in at the time it happened and not for us to just find out by people noticing his involvement on companies house. That feels slightly disrespectful to me regards being open with the fans. A guy buying a quarter of the club is huge news but we got absolutely nothing.

Ultimately tonight is better than nothing and I hope it’s a start of better communication going forward. If they want the fans support and understanding they need to be brutally honest. The lines I read just feel a little like it they’ve not quite thrown open the gates and instead have gone a bit politician on us. I’m hoping to get to watch the full night at some point and then I can judge it with more confidence.

That's true, but i just can't understand how it's a reason not to communicate with everyone?

It's all cloak and dagger and, as it stands, 99% of our fan base aren't sure if we're officially going to get to hear what was said.

Even something as simple as the club saying they will release information soon on what was said, would placate many, myself included. Otherwise it just feels disrespectful.

Any updates on the stadium?

I can’t give it full credibility when I know for a fact some of what is being posted on here is being accurately put over as true.

Now either it isn’t being reported accurately on here, or it’s a lie.

I wasn’t there, so it’s impossible to say.

I have nothing but respect for IFL, I’ve very little faith in Rads as an administrator of the highest caliber or at least a competent one but hope that is proven wrong.

I can however only go off what has been reported on here tonight and if that is accurate reporting then the club are absolutely attempting to cover up past mistakes and prepare the fans for future departures without actually reporting the reasons behind them.

1 very obvious issue was the handling of Burgess. He was ruined when he signed, the nature of his injury isn’t one which happens in the space of a few months. It’s a wear and tear injury so that explanation is total nonsense, before we mention it being talked about before he actually signed for Wigan.

Now if IFK and Rads are saying they make all the decisions on recruitment and are attempting to claim Wigan are responsible for his injury, which again is total nonsense, they are throwing under the bus a member of staff at the club to deflect blame from themselves.

Burgess was 100% crocked when he signed. Claiming anything different is not true.

Given what has been reported says otherwise then it throws into doubt the rest of the information given as less than credible IF things are being reported accurately on here.

I know for a fact that the version of events put out tonight with regards to the Edwards fiasco is not correct, which therefore makes me question what else said tonight isn't true?

There was zero reason for not putting tonight on Wigan TV or updated by the club's Twitter feed - the club would still control the narrative.

My overriding feelings of what's been said tonight and the way the communication has been handled can best be summed up by the following.......