The fifth meeting with Gerald Krasner took place this evening, Tuesday 29/09/20. The telephone call lasted 38 minutes.
Rumours The Americans have gone for good, but there are ‘other’ Americans interested.
I don’t know of any Dutch interest, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, because we’ve sent out 106 NDAs now and we’ve dealt with 22 bidders so far.
EFL I’ve no complaints with the EFL, they’ve kept to the rules, they’ve let us trade it on, they want Wigan to survive, they’re actually talking today about money distribution. If there is any money coming down it won’t be for us now, but will be for the new owners.
The EFL are in regular contact, I had a phone call with them yesterday, which I’m not going into because it is highly confidential, but they have expressed no concern at this current moment in time. They are in weekly contact.
Running Costs We have a monthly cost of £600K, of which the players wages are £217K, without a buyer, or EFL intervention, as I said previously, we won’t make Christmas.
Alan Nixon Interview I would accept that Mr Nixon gave a very fair and balanced interview from the fans point of view, using a lot of information that was in the public arena or that had been given to him off the record despite NDAs, unfortunately the people giving him this information didn’t give him the full picture on what the bids actually were. With regards to the fees, the club aren’t paying the fees and we still haven’t drawn a penny yet.
But in fairness it was a good interview and it shows he understands what has gone on, he’s been used by the Americans and he’s used them for stories, that’s what journalists do.
More Bids For Players? We aren’t looking to sell anymore, what you have to bear in mind is some of the sales, and we’ve sold all the valuable ones I accept, is due to the players themselves handing in transfer requests in writing and we can’t refuse it. It’s not that we've sold them, we’ve had a request from the players, they didn’t want to play on lower wages.
There are no bids sitting on the table for any of the players left in the squad, we need to put a team out so there is no one left that we can sell.
Administrations I’ve had a look in previous administrations how long it took to sell the football clubs, Bolton was two and half months, Bournemouth was over a year, Port Vale was roughly a year, Stockport a year, Bolton is the only one to be quicker and we’ve been here just 3 months on Thursday. So despite what people may feel, this isn’t dragging on.
Previous Owners The fact that they wouldn’t put any more money in, is not a crime, it’s morally irreprehensible, but it’s not a crime.
Of all the people that have come to me, maybe one has been a Wigan fan, the others? It’s just a vehicle to do something, that’s how it’s looked on. You don’t find Dave Whelans anymore.
Sharpey’s I’m not going to tell you how much we’re going to be getting for the Chippy, that’s confidential, but also we haven’t sold it yet and we may not sell it, we haven’t decided yet. We’ve had a good bid, but whether we will break it up, it isn’t like the other training ground (Euxton), everyone we spoke to wanted that and to sell it on at a profit, not one bidder was looking at that as a training ground for Wigan, so criticise me for selling it, but I’ve sold it and there are reasons for selling it, to get the offer price down.
If the Chippy is sold separately it will go into the property company. But it may have to fund some of the shortfall in the football club, we’ve got a loss in the football club of £3m.
Players Coming Out Of Contracts I don’t deal with the players, its Paul Stanley who deals with that side of the admin, he liaises with the manager and the players.
Bidders Since yesterday morning it’s changed, I’ve lost one and gained one, we’ve got that many contracts out because they all want different things, surely someone is going to sign, that’s not borne out of hope, that’s my gut feel after all these years of doing it, when I can’t say, I get emails every day, but things change rapidly, though the people who came in yesterday morning are still there, that hasn’t changed overnight. I emailed them the NDA and it was back in 2 minutes, very quick, doing their due diligence on the club in the data room all day today. I’m very optimistic.
As soon as there is something definite, by that I mean money shown and signature I won’t wait to call a press conference, I will just announce it, I will put it on the website, do a press release, but even then from what they are telling me, is none of the bidders what their identity disclosed in any way.
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