Wigan Athletic
Wigan Athletic spent four of the nine seasons from 2009/10 to 2017/18 in the Premier League and three in the Championship, with two lower down. Their best finish was 15th, in 2011/12. They won one major trophy: the FA Cup. Over those nine summers they paid £35.5m in transfer fees and took in £60.8m, a net profit of £25.3m. In 115.football they get City’s £900m instead.
Wigan Athletic's 2012/13 season is one of the strangest in English football. In May they beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final. Days later they were relegated, the first club to win the cup and go down in the same season. It summed up a club that had spent years surviving in the Premier League, 16th, 16th and 15th, on a fraction of their rivals' budgets.
What came after was harder. Fifth in the Championship in 2013/14 brought a play-off campaign, then 23rd and relegation a year later. They came back for 2016/17 and went straight down again.
Wigan were always a selling club. Antonio Valencia went to Manchester United in 2009, Victor Moses to Chelsea in 2012, and James McCarthy and Arouna Koné to Everton the summer after the cup win. With £900m on 115.football the cup-winning squad stays together, and Wigan get to find out what else it might have won.
Trophies
Season by season
Biggest signings
Biggest sales
In the game
78 runs
Fees are those reported at the time, some estimated, for moves in the summer window. Trophies counted: the Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, FA Cup and League Cup.