The sale of Wigan Athletic's Euxton training ground complex to Preston North End was 'opportunistic' and was not on the cards until just a few a weeks ago.

That's according to the Deepdale club owner's representative Peter Ridsdale.

The Latics' joint administrators yesterday confirmed the sale of the club's facility to the Championship side had been completed.

The training complex was bought by Wigan in 2016 from Bolton Wanderers when the Latics were under the ownership of Dave Whelan and his family.

Wigan were plunged into administration at the start of July and suffered relegation to League One when 12 points were deducted from their total upon the conclusion of the Championship last season.

The deduction took the Latics from 13th in the table into the relegation zone, with a subsequent appeal against the penalty being dismissed by an independent Arbitration panel, thus confirming Wigan's status as a League One club.

Following the sale to the Lilywhites, the Preston owner's representative has explained why the Deepdale club made the move to acquire the Euxton facility.

In an exclusive interview with our sister site Lancs Live on a range of topics, Ridsdale said Preston have acquired a '£10m facility' at a 'fraction' of the price which the Lilywhites 'couldn't refuse'.

It is also not the first time Preston have tried to buy the Euxton training ground, with Ridsdale saying the Lilywhites were outbid by the Latics when the facility was being sold by the Trotters.

"Until two weeks ago I never had any idea we were going to buy Euxton, albeit Wigan outbid us when we tried to buy it off Bolton," he said.

"This has come up at a bargain price so what do we do, just say forget about it? Or do we deliver on a Premier League quality training ground? It's smart business, but some people have slagged us off for it.

"It's a massive upgrade for all sorts of reasons; there's a changing room the size of Wembley for the first team, plus two additional full size changing rooms, under-soil heating in one pitch, hydrotherapy pools, physio rooms five times the size currently, coaches rooms, a presentation suite and a separate building for us with offices.

"It's fantastic and the pitch is in great shape - we've taken on the full time groundsman, caretaker and cleaner who was down there.

"It's a perfect facility from our point of view, a lot of lads live that way and it happens to be a price we couldn't refuse because it's a £10m facility for, well the administrator has indicated a value - we're not allowed to say what it is but the numbers aren't far off the mark.

"It was opportunistic, I got a phone call two weeks ago today saying if you offer this you'll get it and we did."