Joint administrator is confident about finding club buyer
A JOINT administrator of Wasps is ‘confident’ of securing a preferred party to help begin the process of taking over the rugby club.
The affairs, business and property of the company are being managed by Andrew Sheridan and Rajnesh Mittal of FRP who were appointed joint administrators.
Mr Sheriden delivered the news in person to players at the Henleyin-arden training ground and later that day spoke on the BBC’S Rugby Union Weekly podcast with host Sara Orchard. Below is the transcript of Mr Sheridan’s answers...
Tell us what happened to Wasps
“Today (Monday) the court appointed myself and my colleague as joint administrators of Wasps Holdings Limited, which is the entity where all the sporting businesses lay, so Wasps men, ladies, netball and the academies. Unfortunately, it was necessary to make all people at the business redundant, which was pretty raw emotionally, I have to say.”
The meeting with players ....
“I dealt with the meeting at the training centre which is where most people were, certainly where the Wasps mens team were, there were a few at the Coventry Arena as well that my colleague dealt with. But there was a pretty full turnout, the RPA were there to support their members. Telling people is always very tough but what struck me, it’s such a tight-knit family, it was like losing a family member. There was a lot of tears and grown men, international rugby players, balling their eyes. You could see the emotion, it was pretty tough.”
Can you tell us what happens now to Wasps going forward. As we understand it, things can happen very quickly in this situation...
“They can happen quickly and they need to happen quickly, because for Wasps to have any prospect of staying in the Premiership this year, it’s something that would have to happen remarkably quickly, because I just don’t think the people who run the competition will allow them to delay more fixtures. Realistically, is that a possibility? Well, all things are possible, I think that’s a tough ask.
“I think the other thing that makes these things difficult is there is a process to go through with both the RFU and PRL, depending on which entity takes it forward. That isn’t a quick process.
“So first of all we have to find someone who wants to take the business forward, and then we’ve got that preferred entity, we’ve got to make sure they’ve been introduced to the RFU to start their fit and proper process. That will take time and that’s the problem, time is what we don’t have.
“Unfortunately, the processes that are in place do take time. Another impediment, really, I think, and it’s outside of my gift. I can only sell what we have to sell. But unfortunately, people will always talk about the P share, it’s actually the A, B and P shares, they’re not within my gift.
“I think Martyn Phillips’ (chair of PRL) statement he made this week about the P share was fairly compelling. Certainly enough to make an interested party we were talking about proceeding very sadly, drop out.”
What is happening to the training ground and the Coventry Building Society Arena?
“The training ground actually wasn’t owned by Wasps Holdings, it’s owned separately. It’s a state-ofthe-art facility, it’s very sad today to see players taking their kit away, it’s quite sad to see.
“But that facility is still there and I understand the owner of it has got his own insurance to ensure the players can come themselves and be insured, and still use the facility to keep fit.
“As for the Arena, the Arena is part of a much larger complex of businesses and are different legal entities. It hosts Wasps in rugby, it hosts Coventry City in football, it hosts concerts, that will still be in use for those activities and I am sure if in the fullness of time, there is a new owner for that business, they would want to have Wasps as a tenant.
“The real thrust now, must be to find a preferred party. We’ve been talking to somebody today, and are reasonably hopeful, confident, I would say that tomorrow we will be pushing them in front of the RFU to get that process going.
“Where it goes from there is difficult to say.”