That seems more likely to me. Any administrator is going to want to do a deal with the rugby club. In any scenario where Latics have been relegated and the football club is bust no one will really be interested in buying it or funding it at any significant level. The administrator will therefore identify what the club's assets are - players and the stadium - and want to sell them quickly. The stadium will have little value to any third party other than the rugby club. I'd be very surprised if IL couldn't put a deal together for a relatively modest sum to buy the stadium, and then lease it back to the Latics phoenix company formed to continue the football club in due course.

If Latics are relegated this year it will be interesting to see how long DW supports them, especially if crowds dwindle further in the championship.

If that's the case then its unlikely that the adminstrators could sell the stadium to anyone other than the rugby club without the council's consent, so it seems there is little to worry about if the football club become landlord, in fact if this happens and then Latics become insolvent it could well lead to the rugby club becoming the football club's landlord. Which would be a result.

Exactly, when a company goes into administration its assets will be capatalised wherever possible in the quickest and easiest way to the highest bidder. IMO what would happen in reality is Wigan Council and WRLFC as tenants would put together a package with a Stadium Trust fund (much in the same way stains are funding their new ground) to purchase the ground for the use of WRLFC. It makes no sense to buldoze a £35m stadium to sell off for land to a developer for a value of probably less than half of that figure!!.....in reality Wigan RLFC and the council would be able to obtain the stadium for probably half of its real value as even this would be worth more than the land alone and what the nearest developer would pay for it.

What would happen is Wigan RLFC would get the ground with the council for a song, while a reformed FC Latics would play in their natural division, Northern Counties 1st division etc out of the robin park arena next door in front of 500 people. Both clubs restored to their natural level and wigan get the stadium for a snip!! The sooner it happens the better

i think a lot of people are forgetting even if the latics are relegated since those last lot of accounts were printed latics have sold 41.5 million pounds worth of players and would still recieve a parachute payment of 12 million a season for two seasons
also latics players all have relegation pay cuts built into thier contracts,they are in a lot better position to withstand relegation than most clubs in the prem,theres no chance of them going bust in the forseeable future.

That would resolve the problem nicely.

I don't think anyone on here's really concerned about whether Latics do or don't disappear in the near future (though that newspaper article re. the debt must have made frightful reading for anyone who counts himself a Latics fan, regardless of parachute payments, etc).

The main issue on here is whether or not it would have ramifications for Wigan RL. Ian Lenagan himself said something at at Fans Forum about it being better for us if Latics remained solvent. So if you do stay intact, it certainly won't worry me.

it obviously makes sense financially to have two clubs paying the bills at one stadium that much is obvious

12 mil a season isnt a lot when they get 30+ mkil from tv alone in the prem.

Considering also the fans that will drop off

i assume you have facts to back up that statement.

kindly let us into a few and dont generalise.

ask yourself why a 100 million pound shopping centre was built when we already had a shopping centre bareley 20 years old has been left to rack and ruin
brown envelopes comes to mind

Facts??? you dont need facts when you are making wild accusations that happen to be flavour of the month!!

Civic reinvigoration comes to my mind.
Creating much needed new jobs in Construction and retail also springs to mind.
But don’t let that stop your conspiracy theory.

So what are we saying here - that the passing over of yet more brown envelopes would then secure the construction of a third 'white elephant' shopping centre, right next door to the Robin Park shopping mall and Asda ... and that's before you even count the real cost of such a deal, which would be the destruction of Wigan RL (as an immediate sequel to the destruction of Latics)?

Those brown envelopes would need to be bulging, I'll tell you that. Because no current Wigan councillor would ever be re-elected again.

i never mentioned a third shopping centre being built.

i wont bother adding to what previous posters have put, but you seem to have a strange attitude for a bloke with 17 posts.

you arnt an independant/green/raving loony party candidate are you by chance??

That should help with the estimated £69 million debt they had at the end of last season.


I know you're a Latics fan, but I seriously doubt you're privy to each player's contract.

Admittedly, this conversation has followed a meandering course, but the initial discussion was whether or not, if Latics folded (which you and I are both in agreement they probably won't), the administrators would be allowed to sell the stadium to another company, and if they thebn wanted to knock the stadium down and build something else there, would they be allowed to? And if so, how would Wigan RL fight off such a challenge.

My point is that I can't see any new building project - whether it be housing estate, shopping centre, etc - justifying the sort of storm of protest that would follow if Wigan Council gave permission for anything of this sort to happen.

Most likely, as others have said, the administrators would be forced to make use of the stadium, maybe selling it other interested parties who wished to continue with its current use.

catalancs since the 66 million pound debt was reported latics have sold 41.5 million worth of players
as stated previously this debt is owed to whelan so it is not gaining intrest and to just disregard 24 million pounds worth of tv money is folly
when latics sign players all thier contracts include a relegation pay cut as do half the other teams in the prem its not something i thought of in a whim its a common buisness practice
i agree with the point that the stadium wont be knocked down as well.

Latics have spent £6.9 million on transfers thsi summer. Contrary to popular belief Latics got £12 million from the sale of Anronio Valencia to Manchester United. United paid £16 million, but 25% of that went straight to Vila-real.


I'm not saying you haven't worked in the accounts department for a football club or indeed that you aren't in fact an agent for Premier League football players, but to say it's common business practice to include a relegation clause seems a little exaggerated.
The recent examples of Bradford City, Leeds United, Middlesborough and Newcastle United who had to offload many of their big names following relegation from the Premier League due to their unfeasible wages suggests to me that it is far from common business practice.

Because Modus (who have gone bust?) wanted to build it and bring new business to Wigan, they also wanted to build a fancy tower but that aint happening.

What is your point, child?

It was because of what happened at Bradford and Leeds that made many clubs insert relegation wage-cut clauses. Newcastle were just plain arrogant and thought they'd never get relegated. I'd be surprised if Middlesborough didnt have a wage-drop clause. I would guess that all bar the big 4, Man City, Everton, Villa, Spurs & West Ham would now have them as the norm. Certainly my club (Sunderland) do, as they were caught out in 2003 and had to flog all their players to stay afloat.

the reason a lot of football clubs have started to introduce relegation pay cuts is due exactly to the clubs you mention eg leeds,bradford also forest newcastle and boro didnt include these measures in contracts as they believed they would never be relegated,clubs like wigan,hull,bolton,blackburn and birmingham all include these measures when signing players it is a very common practice
aj no need to start getting personal ive no doubt modus wanted a shopping centre built to make money but did the town of wigan need a shopping centre not twenty years after we had one built that has seen most of its big names defect to the grand arcade leaving it an eyesore in our town with loads of empty units
i dont have any facts to back up my theory if i did id make them available to the police but anyone out there who thinks our councillors don take back handers is deluded.
not just wigan council by the way theyre all at it

Two out of the three clubs that were relegated have sold or have been trying to sell their big earners.
West Brom simply didn't have that many to start with.
There are two things that will do for Latics; relegation and Dave Whelan walking away.
If number one comes to pass the second won't be far behind.

Third... Dave Whelan retakes control of Wigan RLFC

I said do for Latics, not Wigan