Warriors sale almost complete

RICHARD Fale says the purchase agreement to take over the Warriors could be done by Friday.

The Hawaiian businessmen flew home last Friday, confident that the consortium he’s fronting is almost over the line with its acquisition of the NRL club from owner Eric Watson’s Cullen Investments.

‘‘Things are all good, we are growing in confidence with the sale,’’ Fale said.

‘‘So we’re continuing to like what we’re seeing.

‘‘There are those in our group that had concerns with any hiccups, given some of the conditions Eric Watson had put in, but we’re growing in confidence and this is looking better and better.

‘‘So I think this is going to happen.’’

The purchase agreement would be their official document for the handover over the club. The agreement would include the terms of the sale and the price.

‘‘Our attorney is going back and forth with their guys and I think we’ll have the final purchase agreement done within the next week,’’ Fale said.

‘‘As long as we can all agree on the details of the purchase agreement, which seems to be progressing just fine, we’ll have something final.

‘‘So we’re continuing to like what we’re seeing, our confidence is growing and we should have a full formed purchase agreement by Friday.

‘‘This would all be done sooner, but it’s just the time differences that have dragged it out.’’

It has been speculated that Auckland Rugby League put in their offer for the Warriors last week, which is believed to be at least a few million dollars less than Fale’s group is willing to pay.

Even at this late stage Fale hasn’t ruled out doing a joint deal with the ARL, although he’d insist on his group being the larger shareholder.

‘‘I don’t know why they would divert efforts from the grass roots into the professional arena. It doesn’t seem to fit with their mission,’’ Fale said.

‘‘I think they should live in their arena and not try to blur the lines between the two, because you’ll run into all sorts of issues when you do that.

‘‘If they want to come in and say they want 49 or 10 per cent, then that would be fine.

‘‘We would like have them be a partner, so that they could have a seat at the table, but we would want to know that they’re committed to growing the game at the grassroots in Auckland.

‘‘So we want to empower them at the grassroots area and let us focus on winning the championship on the professional side.’’