Saudi Arabia in talks to buy stake in Tigers

[Postiger2]

Genuine question to those saying they're fine with it: would you have been okay with the idea if it had been Glaws, Saints and Falcons getting the investment and not on our own club? Not trying to be antagonistic, I'm just curious to know if it wasn't Tigers who stood to benefit, would your reaction be the same?

[ay2oh]

There’s nothing illegal about someone investing in a sporting club. If it helps secure the clubs future it’s a good thing and if other clubs got investment rather than us I suppose I would be jealous I guess.

[Tigersunited]

Yes, don’t see any problem with that - do you?

[Offside]

I recall that Alltrad were interested in investing in Gloucester but could not have a controlling interest in two clubs in the same competition. So how would investing in 4 clubs work from an open and dair competition perspective?

[loretta]

I’d hope it’s about sponsorship, not share ownership. No controlling interest, no conflict

[Tigers86asw]

Investment for someone to make money is one thing. I can’t see it in rugby at the moment but other people will know more than me about investing in sports teams!

Investing for political gain because you are a nation state is another. We don’t have it in the West but can you imagine the UK, France or the USA buying a sports team to promote how great they are? Doesn’t seem right. Isn’t that why we have national sports teams? The reason why countries in the Middle East do it is because they have a lot of money but questionable records on political, civil and human rights. So they need ways of justifying their regimes. Using our club to do that would not be supported by me.

Also, an investment of 60m was quoted. That is nothing to these people, a drop in an ocean of oil. It is so small that I’m not sure anyone in their government would notice! What was it they paid Rahm the golfer? 400m- one bloke to swing his club?

Interesting the clubs they have picked as well. Newcastle aside they are the best supported clubs in the League apart.

[Tiglon]

So it seems odd to be outraged every time we sell them a sports club.

That said, I do understand people's concerns.

My main worry is that it could be a huge investment in just 4 of the teams. Great for us initially at least, but what happens when the other 6 clubs overspend to keep up... 4 professional clubs isn't enough to make a league.

Having said that, maybe we were the only clubs interested, because the others already have wealthy owners? Perhaps we 4 voted against the salary cap, and having being outvoted by the sugar daddies we are now forced to find investment to keep up...

I know it's a competition and therefore we are competing, but rugby is in such a precarious situation that we need to look after each other, otherwise we'll be the only ones left.

As one of the most commercially sustainable clubs in England, I believe we have extra responsibility to think of the league as a whole, rather than just ourselves.

[tigerburnie]

The article says they are after naming rights of stadiums or maybe teams rather than ownership, I know the RFU don't bother much with rules anymore, but you cannot have an owner having more than one club.

[Tigersunited]

Not sure the losses we have had point to us being one of the most sustainable clubs?

[Tiglon]

Not sure the losses we have had point to us being one of the most sustainable clubs?

Which club(s) made a smaller loss than we did?

[Tigersunited]

I don’t have that detail however we lost £3m last year and millions the year before, with shareholders putting £13m in to keep us going - not what I would call sustainable.

[Tigerbeat]

I don’t have that detail however we lost £3m last year and millions the year before, with shareholders putting £13m in to keep us going - not what I would call sustainable.

See thread ref financial results for Tigers

viewtopic.php?t=48211#:~:text=These%20h ... C2%A317.6m.

These have now been published and the full reports can be seen on the Tigers website. The annual loss was reduced to £0.9m. At the end of the financial year the Club had a bank balance of £4.2m but loans and overdrafts totalled £17.6m.

[Tigersunited]

Exactly, losing money and massive loans doesn’t point to sustainability.

[mightymouse]

I have the same question as the poster Offside on here. How is part investing in 4 clubs not a conflict of interest?.. I don’t think this would be allowed in football. If they were investing in the whole league then that would be a different matter.
Secondly 60 million between 4 clubs is comparatively small. We were asking for 60m on our own to purchase the club a year or two ago.
So what would 15million buy? Nice to clear the debts I suppose or maybe continue to improve the ground?
But what stake does it buy in the club? a quarter? And if that is the case then surely a quarter of Tigers or Saints is worth more than a quarter of Falcons for example.
I find the investment of Middle Eastern countries about as distasteful as I used to find investment from Russia. However I have to examine my own hypocrisy here. As someone points out we seem happy to run our cars on their oil. There’s few more detestable regimes than China and yet we ( often inadvertently) purchase almost everything from them!
One thing I think we must absolutely avoid is ensuring they (whoever they are) do not get their hands on the physical assets of the club ie the ground or training ground ( worth considerably more than 15mill ) because we could easily be sold down the river like Worcester and watching a couple of building sites going up instead a match on a Saturday afternoon.. and however turgid out kicking game can appear sometime, that's not a prospect I relish!

[Tigersunited]

Excellent points - I don’t believe they are allowed to own more than 10% of each club. We own the ground but don’t own the training ground - maybe they will build us a new one?? They may also pay for rock bottom