{"id":588014,"date":"2021-03-31T05:07:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T09:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=588014"},"modified":"2021-03-31T05:07:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T09:07:17","slug":"phoenix-2021-complete-wigan-athletic-takeover-new-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/31\/phoenix-2021-complete-wigan-athletic-takeover-new-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix 2021 Complete Wigan Athletic Takeover as New Era Beckons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phoenix 2021 have completed the Wigan Athletic takeover, chaired by Talal Mubarak Al Hammad, promising a much &#8220;healthier and stable&#8221; future for the club.<\/p>\n<h2>Phoenix 2021 Complete Wigan Athletic Takeover as New Era Beckons<\/h2>\n<h3>The New Owners at Wigan<\/h3>\n<p>Talal Mubarak Al Hammad is a Bahrain businessman who is registered as chairman for Phoenix 2021.<\/p>\n<p>He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11682\/12261223\/wigan-athletic-phoenix-2021-limited-completes-takeover-of-league-one-club\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">said<\/a>: &#8220;Personally, I feel excited and happy to start this new challenge. The fans have stayed with the Club through a very dark period and we will do all we can to make sure the future of the Club is a much healthier and stable one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The group includes three directors; Richard Bramwell,\u00a0 Thomas Markham and Malachy Brannigan.<\/p>\n<p>Bramwell has been Finance Director at Wigan since 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Brannigan has a wealth of experience, most recently as Managing Director at Dundee United, Dundalk and Sheffield United. He has previously had roles at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/clubs\/everton\/\" target=\"_self\">Everton<\/a>, Hull City, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/10\/coventry-city-return-ricoh-arena\/\" target=\"_self\">Coventry<\/a> and Derby County.<\/p>\n<p>He now takes up the role of CEO at Wigan.<\/p>\n<p>Oliver Gottmann is the chief finance officer at Phoenix 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"heading-medium\"><span id=\"psc-name-1\">Abdulrahman Al Jasmi has significant control and is listed as an Ubo (Ultimate Beneficiary Owner). He is also a prominent businessman in Bahrain.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Wigan&#8217;s New Owners Speak Out<\/h3>\n<p>Al-Hammad and Al Jasmi have recorded brief video messages that have been published on Wigan&#8217;s club <a href=\"https:\/\/wiganathletic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Hammad was quick to praise the staff and management at the club: &#8220;Today we have Wigan Athletic because of them. They are the true heroes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The hard work that they made keeping Wigan Athletic standing tall, strong.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hopefully there is new challenges and I believe in this team and I believe in the coaching team and the management behind the club.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He then gave a brief message to the Latics faithful: &#8220;Get ready. It will be a nice journey. A magnificent era. We need your support to achieve this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Al Jasmi, UBO at Phoenix 2021, said: &#8220;I have selected an excellent executive team to drive this club back to its glory days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My vision is to restore the club and stabilise [it] in order to bring it back to the Championship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To all Wigan fans: We need your support now more than ever. A new era has begun.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3>Onwards and Upwards for the Latics<\/h3>\n<p>A great weight has been lifted now that the club has found new owners.<\/p>\n<p>Now Wigan can put their fall into administration last summer behind them and having survived the failed takeover by <span class=\"ILfuVd\"><span class=\"hgKElc\">Felipe Moreno over Christmas, the club can begin to look ahead to a bright new future.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>But for now, the objective is survival.<\/p>\n<p>Wigan are clinging perilously to the bottom of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/03\/15\/five-league-one-players-chance-in-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">League One<\/a>, with just five points separating rock bottom Rochdale and the five teams above.<\/p>\n<p>There is still plenty of time for a revival, with the Latics holding the best form out of the relegation battlers. They have lost just once in the last five matches, accruing eight points.<\/p>\n<p>Later today Wigan face Gillingham, in what is yet another all-important match for gaining points.<\/p>\n<p>Gillingham are much higher up the table but have similar recent form with eight points gained in their last five league matches.<\/p>\n<p>Wigan will go into the match eager to win for the first time under new owners, and for the first time since the 9th of March.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"KCxB0FdUQMx-NXDDbBeYrg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1309636449\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'KCxB0FdUQMx-NXDDbBeYrg',sig:'OCR4WrEuw2jHhwdRZ32abWG7xs0l1JmgofH7YAEtNzc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1309636449',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phoenix 2021 have completed the Wigan Athletic takeover, chaired by Talal Mubarak Al Hammad, promising a much &#8220;healthier and stable&#8221; future for the club. Phoenix 2021 Complete Wigan Athletic Takeover as New Era Beckons The New Owners at Wigan Talal Mubarak Al Hammad is a Bahrain businessman who is registered as chairman for Phoenix 2021. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":408,"featured_media":588020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,32,34],"tags":[8502,8503,8504,8501,795,7417],"class_list":["post-588014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-league-football","category-league12","tag-abdulrahman-al-jasmi","tag-malachy-brannigan","tag-phoenix-2021","tag-talal-al-hammad","tag-wigan-athletic","tag-wigan-takeover"],"modified_by":"Declan Wiseman, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/408"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}