Did anyone genuinely think any new owner would be splashing the cash? If they did I think they completely misjudged our situation.
We are a loss making club, in a loss making league with very little revenue before covid lockdowns destroy the football and non football world economy. Breaking even pre covid would've been totally reliant on successfully playing money ball which we never managed previously so breaking even now is probably near impossible in our situation even with the 2.5m salary cap forcing us to run a very modest wage bill.
Whoever comes in is looking at 3.5m to buy us, and at least 5m but likely a lot more in loses over the next 2 seasons before paying a transfer fee. So anyone buying us is probably looking at throwing in about 10m with very little chance of return for the short term. So it may not feel like splashing the cash but if the new owners aren't transferring the cost of buying us onto the club as debt like Choi did just covering the running cost will be investing very heavily for them.
Even if Ganaye and the Americans got us their philosophy was self sufficiency as otherwise you are looking at losing even more than the 10m loss they'd initially have to factor in. Look at Barnsley for example they have very rich owners but since they arrived they have received more in player fees than they spent and still ran annual loses. While Luton's owners have no money and have spent very little yet Luton have done better than Barnsley over the last few years all things considered and both done much better than Sunderland who have a wage bill bigger than both combined in the league below. So it just goes to show that it doesn't matter how rich your owners are, as they may not be willing to spend it on the club and even if they do it doesn't guarantee success. I'd take a chairman with less money with good judgement and a strategy over a rich one with poor judgement who thinks they can easily spend their way to success.
I remember in one of the supposedly leaked messages it said Lenegan was planning to buy us, run us on a shoe string and rely on free transfers and the academy and some people seemed upset by that suggestion. But that was almost certainly going to be the same strategy that any new owner would be following and most of the other clubs at this level will already be doing or forced to do if they want to avoid going bust and fit into the salary cap.
Anyone who has so much money they are happy to burn through millions on a toy will likely have enough money to buy a better club than Wigan so we need to set our expectations accordingly. We are looking at either naive gamblers like Choi who invested heavily and then pulled out when he realised his plan to make a huge immediate return based on Premiership promotion was unrealistic. Or a pragmatic owner who appreciates the challenge of successfully running a club and will run us sensibly aiming for self sustainability and only getting returns over the long term. Assuming the owner is willing and able to cover the running costs for the foreseeable future the level of financial clout beyond that probably a lot less important than their intentions and strategy.
In this league remember only 2 clubs had a net transfer expenditure and that was just 200k a piece and 18 of the 24 clubs didn't recieved or pay a penny in transfer fees. There is no money in this league at all and spending your way out is not really an option anymore like we did in the past. Success at this level is going to be decided by good managers and clever recruitment. The wage cap means realistically clubs can't be massively out bidding each other on wages with the majority of players being forced into 2k a week or less as an average so in many instances the player will probably choose where they want to go as money won't be vastly different between clubs at the same level. In this instance if we get the ship back on course we are probably one of the more attractive clubs at this level and have a good shout at having our pick of the frees. If we werent hamstrung by administration I think just using frees and loans we could've easily recruited a strong L1 squad and picked up a decent name manager. So I do think just having getting back to level playing field will give us a better chance than most of the competition to attract players.
The marketing guy who arranged the deal, Cliveden, will be the guy running things if the take over happens. He said his investors had a successful model they used in Spain that they wanted to apply to a L1 or L2 club. He explicitly said they weren't going to be sugar daddies. So any talk of being underwhelmed in the sense of splashing cash makes me wonder if the issue is less that the new owner is that bad but more unrealistic expectations meeting reality.
Personally I have 4 expectations that I really hope to see:
1. The new ownership don't transfer debt into the club like Choi did
2. The new owners understand the financial realities of L1 football and are pragmatic with their expectations. AKA they aren't ignorant or naive enough to think they can quickly and easily flip the club for a profit any time soon.
3. They have an understanding of English lower league football on the pitch.
4. They treat the club with respect. Even if they see us as a busines venture to make profit I hope they appreciate that the club is more than just that to the fans and there is a certain duty of care that our previous owners didn't afford us.
I was a bit concerned at the news that Jose Cristo was buying us as I didn't think he'd likely be well up on L1 and feared he thought what worked in the Spanish 3rd tier could easily translate here without fully taking into account how different it will be. But the news that Cliveden was involved made me feel more comfortable as he has a long background in sports marketing including working in football and tried to buy us with other investors before Choi got us from Whelan. So he has clearly kept an eye on us for a good while and in theory should be fully aware of the realities of L1. He seems to believe Cristo's model will work here, hopefully he is right. So I've got an open mind and interested to see exactly what that involves.
Maybe the new ownership will be hopeless or maybe it will be great - we'll just have to see how it goes. But I think we are lucky to get a new owner at all as there is no money to be made in lower league football at the moment and risk of never getting a return on investment on buying us is very high. So I am just grateful we have a lifeline when Bury and Macclesfield went bust and judge the new owners on what they do once they get in place. If they have the finances to cover running costs, fully understand what they have got themselves into and treat the club with respect I'll be quite pleased.
