Latics left facing big legal bill
HARD-UP Wigan’s fight to stay in the Championship will cost the club around £500,000.
With the battle to remove the 12-point penalty for going into administration switching from the football field to an EFL commission chamber, the club know they will be hit with a substantial bill.
But joint administrator Gerald Krasner, the former Leeds chairman, believes it will be worth every penny, especially if the Latics pull off an amazing rescue act.
Their case will centre on ‘force majeure’, a legal term for circumstances considered unforeseeable and unavoidable.
Krasner’s legal team will emphasise that within a month of the EFL allowing the third sale of the club inside two years, owner Hong Kong businessman Au Yeung Wai Kay placed it into administration citing the effects of Covid-19.
“This could happen again to any other club,” said Krasner, as he prepares for the appeal on Friday. “It’s not right, and surely the club’s fans deserve better than this?”
Shattered emotionally by the efforts of trying to avoid the drop, boss Paul Cook is now powerless to stop a number of his best players leaving in a desperate fire sale.
Director of football
Peter Reid said: “What has happened to the club is criminal and should be investigated thoroughly.
“All we can do now is sit and hope that we win the appeal.”
If Wigan do manage to overturn the 12-point penalty then Barnsley, who pulled off an amazing win at Brentford, will replace them in League One.