Wigan Athletic's appeal against 12-point EFL deduction to be led by one of Britain's top barristers

One of the country’s leading barristers has been appointed to oversee Wigan Athletic’s appeal against their 12-point deduction by the EFL after the club was put into administration.

David Phillips QC, of Wilberforce Chambers, will lead Wigan’s fight to overturn the sanction on the grounds of “force majeure”, which usually relates to exceptional circumstances beyond the control of involved parties.

The EFL will wait to discover where Wigan finish in the Championship table before determining when to apply the deduction. If Paul Cook’s side are relegated this term, the sanction will be applied at the start of the 2020-21 League One season.

However, if Wigan are not in the bottom three by the end of the season, the deduction will be applied and the standings amended accordingly.

Phillips is described in the 2019 edition of The Legal 500 as “an excellent all-round sports practitioner... Very amiable and a very effective, experienced advocate”. He has sat as a recorder and Deputy High Court Judge for more than 20 years and is a legal member of the Football Association specialist panel and the FA Premier League panel.

“You’ve got to give it your best shot,” Paul Stanley, one of Wigan’s joint administrators, said of the appeal process.

Wigan also face the threat of an additional 15-point deduction if part of a £6 million debt to non-football creditors, including HMRC, is not repaid.

Rick Parry, the EFL chairman, said on Wednesday that there needed to be “collective responsibility” for Wigan’s plight after the club were put into administration only four weeks after Au Yeung Wai Kay’s Next Leader Fund bought the club from the Hong Kong consortium, International Entertainment Corporation (IEC), on May 29.

The EFL have launched an investigation into the circumstances that led to the crisis, separate to the one being conducted by Wigan’s administrators, Begbies Traynor, and have vowed to reform the controversial owners’ and directors’ test.

But Parry - who said he had been “stitched up” by a Wigan fan who secretly filmed him claiming the situation may be linked to a “bet in the Philippines on the club being relegated” - insisted Au Yeung had appeared reputable.

Asked if Au Yeung was “perfectly accepted as an owner”, Parry said: “He was, absolutely. There was nothing to suggest there was anything untoward. He made the financial commitment, we verified he had the wherewithal. Clearly, what we can’t legislate for is people changing their mind.”

When asked if he would take full responsibility if Wigan went bust, Parry said: “We all have to take responsibility, a collective responsibility. But we have to make sure that doesn’t happen, it would be devastating.”

Parry also echoed the EFL statement that ridiculed Au Yeung’s claims the decision to put Wigan into administration was due to the Covid-19 crisis and said it was important their investigation uncovered answers. “This is certainly something we need to get to the bottom of because what they’ve done to the club and the fans - and indeed to the integrity of the Championship - is unacceptable and unprecedented.

“To then make a statement and say this was caused by the Covid-19 crisis, well I think we were well through the crisis before the takeover went through, so that doesn’t stack up either.”

Meanwhile, Wigan MP Lisa Nandy said she had impressed on the administrators the importance of finding the right buyer for the club during talks at the DW Stadium on Tuesday. Wigan Warriors rugby league club, who groundshare with Athletic, are among the interested parties.

“We have to get a buyer in but we also need to make sure that we’re not just sold off to the highest bidder, to someone with no interest in football, Latics and Wigan,” Nandy said. “We want to secure the long-term future, someone who cares about football, cares about the town.

“The administrator - it’s not that they’re against it - but their primary focus is getting a good price for the club. But we don’t want to be like Bury, where one bad deal was replaced with another.”