EXCLUSIVE: Ben Goodburn explains Wigan Athletic CEO situation - 'It's been like turning a huge oil tanker around'

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the Mike Danson takeover, since when Ben Goodburn has been juggling the role of interim CEO with his duties as chairman.

And in an exclusive interview with Wigan Today, Goodburn - who makes up one half of the club's 'legal board' with Lucas Danson, son of Mike - has been reflecting on an eventful first 12 months, from the 'absolute mess' they inherited from previous owners Phoenix 2021 Ltd.

"It has certainly been eventful," said Goodburn, who holds leadership roles at each of Danson's other business interests, including Wigan Warriors. "Looking back, we came into the club last summer, and it was in a sorry state, it was in an absolute mess, despite the work that the staff here were doing to keep the club going on a day-to-day basis.

"It was operating on a hand-to-mouth basis and so, over the last 12 months, we've been working hard to address governance issues, structural issues, to ensure the club has solid foundations on which to build, to make sure we can address the ambitions that we have got, and to ensure it's sustainable for the future, which is our responsibility as custodians of the football club."

After completing the purchase of the club inside FIVE DAYS, Goodburn admits the last 12 months has seen plenty of 'learning on the job' for all concerned.

"We were in a position where we had to do the deal inside five days, because we were working against a winding-up order, which had a definitive deadline," he said. "Our background in business is on transactions where we know what the targets are, and we have a clear plan to execute on them, which can take months rather than days.

"A lot of work goes into the due diligence and ensuring we have proper integration plans...how to integrate those businesses into the group. This was completely different but, nevertheless, when we reflect on the last 12 months, we're clearly in a much better position than we were back then.

"We have a very clear and capable leadership group, within the ownership group, we have the legal group, with Lucas (Danson) and myself...and I should mention Lucas is heavily invested in the club as well.

"Underneath that we have the technical board...including Gregor (Rioch, sporting director), Shaun (Maloney, manager), Stevie (Gormal, head of recruitment), Sarah (Guilfoyle, head of football administration), Richard (Bramwell, finance director) and Jake (Campbell, head of Academy). It's a great group that's been tasked with the sporting vision, and the sporting decisions.

"Underneath that, we've got our senior management team, including 11 heads of department, who meet every week, as well as one-to-ones with the senior management teams. I think what's been important in terms of governance and all those people involved, is understanding what the budgets are, and what the vision is.

"When we came into the club, people were working on a day-to-day basis and, as we got close to the winding-up order, it became more like an hour-to-hour basis. So the process has been really to empower staff to do their jobs in a sensible way, and so we've brought some rigour in that sense, across the club."

Latics fans have been waiting for developments regarding a new CEO after Goodburn hinted at a fans' forum last November that an appointment was on the way.

However, it appears the landscape has changed since then.

"It comes back to the deal itself, us coming into the club, and not having the benefit of doing full, robust due diligence on all the issues," Goodburn explained. "We've then come in and there have been, as we thought, an awful lot of issues, a lot of those contractual issues, both with players - it's well documented we had lots of players who were terminating their contacts on the eve of us coming in to take over the club - and also contractual relationships with really important suppliers, providers, and partners of the club that were entered into by the previous ownership, which weren't necessarily in the best interests of the club.

"So in sorting all those things out, it's been like turning a huge oil tanker around. And certainly with my skill set, I have grabbed hold of that. And rather than appoint a CEO, we came to the view it was much better for us to address those issues as an ownership group with the expertise we already have here, to put solid foundations in place, and to then give a lot more clarity to everyone on what the future is."

When asked when fans should expect the situation to be addressed, Goodburn added: "I think we're happy at the moment with the existing arrangement. But undoubtedly as we grow, we will look to bring more expertise on board to help us execute the vision we have for the club. Both Lucas and I are very invested in the football club. One of us is usually here most days of the week. We're very structured on meetings, and that's working very well at the moment. We're just not at the point where I think we see the need to bring in a CEO to execute the initiatives we've got in place. But of course that may change."