WAKEFIELD TRINITY are not just in the midst of saving their Super League season, they are also in the process of a new ownership deal.
Local businessman Matthew Ellis is set to take over the West Yorkshire club, but things have since gone quiet, leading to some Wakefield fans to question what is happening regarding that sale.
Now, Trinity chairman John Minards has had his say on what is causing the delay.
“I wanted to talk to you specifically about the potential acquisition of the club by Matt Ellis which as everybody will know has been ongoing and we’ve been discussing for a few months now,” Minards said.
“It’s my practice when we are dealing with a complex piece of business transaction that I don’t comment publicly until there is something to say which is why I haven’t commented on it.
I’m receiving a lot of inbound traffic that a number of our supporters and some of our most loyal supporters are disturbed by rumours that they’re hearing and things that they’re reading. And it’s upsetting to them and disturbing to them.
“And all of this just at the time when the club should be absolutely pulling together and building on the recent run of form and the fantastic performance that we put out last Sunday against Warrington in driving us forward to survival this year in the Super League and taking us all forward. It’s a bit distracting and a bit irritating if I’m being honest.
“Let me set out the situation to you very clearly. As you will know, we have been talking with Matt Ellis and his advisors for two or three months now around a potential acquisition by them of the club whereby they would invest many millions of pounds over the years and have great plans and ambition for the club to take it back up to where we all want to see it.
“Two things I want to make absolutely clear. The first one, nobody is blocking the deal, least of all me. And secondly, and I can confirm this following an exchange with Matt Ellis this afternoon, nobody is on the point of walking away from a deal.
“What is now proceeding is what is known as due diligence. What that means is that Matt and his team have to learn a little bit more about the detail of where we are here and what goes on and how it runs. We similarly want to find out a little bit more about his plans and his intent and his capabilities and his team and so on. And that exchange is happening, where negotiations take place.”
Minards also went on to explain that Ellis’ funding has helped to bring in the likes of David Fifita and Luke Gale.
“We’re having some negotiations on some specific points, which clearly I’m not going to go into publicly – that is absolutely normal practice. But what I want to stress is that Matt and I, and Michael (Carter – Trinity CEO), are absolutely clear that we want this transaction to proceed forward and we’re confident that it will. We can’t say when it will, but we are keen that it moves forward.
“Matt is helping us also with some funding, as we’ve already announced through sponsorship to help us, in part, pay for some of the deals that we’d already done to bring in a couple of key players, Luke (Gale) and Dave (Fifita) in particular, and also helping us fund some of the other players that you’ve seen come in and out in the period since. So this is all tremendously helpful.
“It is translating into a real upturn on the field which is what we all want to see, survival this year and move on to next year. We are confident we will be able to resolve the negotiations that are happening.”
