Hawaii sale looks likely

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

The Hawaiian businessmen flew home on Friday night, confident that the consortium he’s fronting is almost over the line with its acquisition of the NRL club from current 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, we were all on a conference call on Friday and Mac (the consortium’s financial adviser) still can’t find a reason not to do this, and his whole job was to find a reason why we shouldn’t do the deal.’’ The purchase agreement would be the 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.

It has been speculated that Auckland Rugby League put in its offer for the Warriors last week, which is believed to be at least a few million dollars less than what 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.

He is keen for the ARL to be involved and have an input into how the club is run, but feels the ARL’s priority should be to improve the game at the lower levels.

‘‘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.’’