Financial woes force Wasps to halt recruitment

ON THE BLINDSIDE

By Neil Fissler

Wasps have placed a freeze on recruitment despite Lee Blackett aiming to sign another two players before the new season kicks off at Gloucester next month.

The financially distressed outfit have already missed one deadline to repay the £35m retail bond they took to finance the purchase of their 35,000 seater ground in 2015. The bond, which was due to return 6.5 per cent interest, was suspended on the London Stock Exchange in May on the last day of trading before it was set to mature.

The club have had talks with HSBC about a refinancing deal defaulted on their repayment, and a new deadline of August 12 was set, but they are now going to miss that date as well.

Wasps will need to ask bondholders to agree to another extension to the redemption deadline, which would remove the default status and ease some of the pressure. Earlier this summer, Wasps applied to The West Midlands Combined Authority for £13m in public funds and hoped to have a couple more new signings in place.

Blackett has seen 11 players depart, including Malakai Fekitoa, Jeffery Toomaga-Allen, Thomas Young, and Jimmy Gopperth. He has only been able to recruit seven new signings, which have included Vincent Koch from Saracens and former Ireland prop John Ryan from Munster.

For exclusive stories and all the detailed rugby news you need, subscribe to The Rugby Paper website, digital edition, or newspaper from as little as 14p a day.