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WTF Happened to Wigan Athletic?

WTF Has Happened to Wigan Athletic?

Charles N'Zogbia. Hugo Rodallega. Emile Heskey.

Wigan are a club that cannot be left out of the conversation when we think about the 'good old days' of Premier League football, playing home to Barclaysmen and fan-favourites for almost a decade between 2005 and 2013.

Their relegation to the Championship 13 years ago coincided with their miraculous FA Cup triumph, courtesy of a Ben Watson injury time winner against Man City, becoming the only team to have suffered the drop and won the world's oldest cup competition in the same season.

Those of us who follow the EFL will be well aware of the fall from grace that the Latics have suffered in the years since, but many are often unaware of just how much their fans have been made to suffer, especially at the moment.

So now that they sit in the relegation zone in League One, and with the news that they've sacked Ryan Lowe after 11 months in charge, now feels like a good time to talk about Wigan, and where it's all gone wrong.

The Glory Days

Beyond the aforementioned trio, Wigan had some serious talent within their ranks during their time in the top flight, including Antonio Valencia, Ali Al-Habsi and Pascal Chimponda just to name a few.

As a result, despite spending most of their time in the lower order of the Premier League, they won the hearts of opposition fans over and are now looked back on with nostalgia.

They loved the drama of a relegation battle, having been uncomfortably close to going down a few times in the eight years, but when you're able to replace a manager like Steve Bruce with a manager like Roberto Martinez, you're usually pretty safe.

Ironically it was Martinez that was in charge when the Latics finally went down in 2013, but made sure to bring the side some silverware while he did it with their remarkable FA Cup upset, an achievement that earned them Europa League football while they were in the Championship in the following season.

Commence the long and continuous horror story that came next.

On-Pitch Problems

When you suffer relegation to the Championship, you're presented with two options. The first is to be clever with money and utilise any remaining financial power you hold from being in the Premier League to be in the fight to go back up. The second is to fade into obscurity.

Unfortunately, Wigan's fate lay in the latter.

In their first season back in the second tier, they fell at the play-off semi finals at the hands of QPR, not too bad an effort for a freshly relegated side. They got relegated the next season though.

A massive fall in almost no time was, understandably, a bit of a shock to the system for the Tics, but they managed to bounce back by winning League One, while a new cult hero established himself in Will Grigg.

The next few seasons saw Wigan yo-yo between the second and third tiers before the Whelan family sold the club, bringing an end to 23 years of ownership from the family.

Off the back of a financial meltdown (we'll come back to this), the Latics came close to back-to-back relegations, as they came 20th in League One in the 2020/21 season, only to go and win the league the next season.

They've been languishing in the third tier since 2023, though, coming 12th and 15th in the two seasons prior to this one. Things are looking even worse now.

Wigan sit in 22nd and are staring down the barrel of the drop to League Two, a division they haven't been in for 30 years. They can take penance in the fact that the relegation scrap is very compact, as they trail Barnsley up in 15th by just six points, so just one win can change their immediate outlook.

That would be great if they were picking up results. Instead, they've taken just one point from their last five games and haven't won in the league since December 29th, increasing the immense pressure of facing the drop with each new disappointing result.

How are they continuing to regress, I hear you ask?

A Financial Nightmare

Wigan are yet another example of fans being made to suffer because of inept ownership, becoming another case study in why the EFL needs to improve support for clubs who are being harmed by their owners.

The club underwent two sales in quick succession, the latter coming in 2020 to the Next Leader Fund, who had become the majority shareholder as a result.

This was a move that proved costly for Wigan, though.

As COVID-19 sent clubs into panic mode and clubs lost money like it was fashionable, Wigan were hit especially hard in the pockets, both from the lack of revenue that the outbreak caused and a lack of investment.

Their new owners refused to cough up money that they had promised to invest, which sent the club into administration, ensuing cries from fans and politicians for an investigation into the club's takeover to be conducted.

As punishment for their financial issues, Wigan were hit with a 12-point deduction that relegated them to League One, but what was more worrying was the mass redundancy that the staff were hit with, as about half of the club's workforce were now out of a job.

Full credit has to be given to the fans of the club, who had already suffered enough compared to where they were a decade prior, as they raised around £700,000 to keep the club afloat, but that didn't save them from further sanctions going forward.

Several bouts of players and staff not receiving wages meant that Wigan were genuinely on the brink of liquidation in 2023, as they were hit with a winding up petition, only for local billionaire Mike Danson to swoop in and buy the club, paying off all debts in the process.

It's now been two and a half years since the Latics came out the other side of their financial crisis, yet things seem to be getting worse on the pitch.

What Next for Wigan?

With Ryan Lowe no longer at the helm, the Tics are reportedly eager to bring in his replacement as quickly as possible, with a club statement emphasising the importance of bringing in someone that they think will be able to turn the ship around quickly.