Warriors restart ownership talks

The battle to buy the New Zealand Warriors is back on.

A number of interested parties are once again talking to the Warriors about buying the Auckland-based club, now the deal with Auckland Rugby League has fallen through.

The NRL club agreed to go into an exclusivity arrangement with Auckland Rugby League, which meant discussions with everyone else who’d shown interest in buying the franchise were terminated.

But on Tuesday Auckland Rugby League confirmed their negotiations with Warriors had broken down, even though they had agreed a price and were going through the due diligence process.

Because of that, the parties who had previously shown interest have got back in touch with the Warriors to pick up negotiations.

Although it’s not known exactly how many people or companies there are out there looking to buy the Warriors, it appears there are a few.

The Warriors ownership aren’t in any rush to get a deal done and the other parties interested don’t want it publicly known that they’d like to buy the club, preferring to do all their negotiations in secret.

Over the next few weeks the club will get a gauge on how genuinely interested some of those people are.

The long-term ownership of the Warriors has been up in the air since August, when Auckland businessman Paul Davys tendered a bid to buy the club off its longtime owner Eric Watson.