What are Wigan at?

KdjaCL

Wigan Athletic have been told that Greater Manchester Police plans to withdraw its services on match days.

That means the safety certificate for the JJB Stadium will probably be revoked when Wigan Council's Safety Advisory Group meets on Tuesday.

The move is the latest incident in a row between club chairman Dave Whelan and GMP, who say he owes £300,000 in unpaid policing bills.

GMP plans to withdraw the service from 2 April, the date of the West Ham game.

Home matches against Sunderland, QPR and Reading will also be affected, and could be played behind closed doors. ...............more

A team on the brink of PL fighting over money they seemingly should be paying, in PL wont that fee grow ?

Seems weird to be doing that.

kdjac

eirebhoy

They are getting charged over £90k a match and they think its too much. Sounds a bit much to me tbh. I'm sure they'd be paying it if it was on par with everyone else.

Chucky the tree

eirebhoy wrote:

They are getting charged over £90k a match and they think its too much. Sounds a bit much to me tbh. I'm sure they'd be paying it if it was on par with everyone else.

Surely it is on par with everyone else? what reason can GMP give to just charge WIgan extra?!


They shouldnt pay for policing outside the gorund? is he serious?!

jesus_thats_gre

The are getting charged 48k a week. Other clubs in the same league, with bigger capacity stadiums and covered by other Police Forces are being charged as low as 9k.

They are paying over the odds..

eirebhoy

On Football Focus they said Wigan were charged £80-90k for one of their recent matches and they refused to pay. Didn't know that the bill has amounted to £300k.

If they are being charged 48k that is a total of over £2m per year. Surely too much for a championship team.

_blank_

That and the fact that other police force charges a small percentage of what Wigan are being asked for.

Fair play to the chairman, I say, for standing up to this extortion.

cruiserweight

I can't remember if it was on Football Focus or on Sky Sports on Saturday morning but the compared the bill that Wigan were sent for policing with the one that Preston were sent, both for games against Leeds. Wigan were charged something like 48k and Preston were charged 8k. Although they are in different policing regions and you can expect some differences, this one seems huge.

I think part of the problem is Wigan say they are being charged for policing outside the ground which is not their responsibility!

Töpher

Fair fúcks to them tbh! If it came to it they could hire a coulpe of ex-cons with sacks of bricks for a few quid to police it :eek:

eirebhoy

I've called Wigan the Chelsea of the Championship a few times and this definitely backs it up :
Whelan told Radio 5 Live: “It is not about money – it’s about the principle. “We are fighting to say ‘why are we being charged this?' We are fighting to be treated fairly like any other football club.”

They have the money but, like Abramovich, won't pay way over the odds (for most things/players anyway). Maybe the police are actually charging them so much because they thought they'd pay it with the money they have.

kensutz

it's been sorted for the moment, now for them to make sure the other blue and white team doesnt come up with them.