Glover in the frame to offer Wakefield new hope

WAKEFIELD entrepreneur Andrew Glover last night emerged as the front-runner to take over the city’s troubled rugby league club after it entered administration.

Spirit Of 1873 Limited – a private investment company backed by Glover – has already made an offer to buy Wakefield Trinity Wildcats and he has also crucially been provisionally approved by the Rugby Football League under the ‘fit and proper person’ test.

The company’s bid to the prospective administrators, if accepted, would both secure the future of the club and its Community Trust, allowing Wildcats to compete in the 2011 Super League season and the charity arm to continue work promoting health and fitness in the area while also striving for the new stadium at Newmarket.

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Glover, who also owns West Yorkshire Windows Ltd who agreed a shirt sponsorship deal with the club in November, is believed to be ready to invest a “substantial” amount in order to revitalise one of the founder members of the game.

The news will come as a welcome relief to concerned fans who held genuine fears their club could face ruin on the back of continued financial issues.

Wildcats took the action of requesting to go into administration yesterday to avoid a winding-up petition – due today – brought by HM Revenue and Customs for an unpaid tax bill thought to be in excess of £300,000.

The appointment of Peter O’Hara as administrator is expected to be confirmed on Monday, just five days before their opening Super League match of the season against fierce rivals Castleford at the Millennium Stadium.

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“I fully sympathise with fans who have had so little hard information about their club in recent months while recognising that it has been extremely difficult, for legal reasons, for the board to communicate as fully as they may have wished,” said Glover, who admitted long-serving Trinity chairman Ted Richardson is now set to exit Belle Vue.

“However, the current directors have confirmed to us during our discussions that, if our bid is successful, they will all be resigning and will not look to be involved in the management of the club going forward.”

Other interested parties are believed to be Guiseley FC owner Steve Parkin along with Eric France, whose scrap metal business is already a main sponsor of the club, but Glover is the first to make his proposals public.

The Wildcats directors had asked supporters to raise £500,000 by the end of January in order to secure the club’s immediate future but that appeal fell well short of the target.

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Sir Rodney Walker, chairman of the Wakefield & District Community Trust, spearheading new stadium plans, had already come to its rescue in October, settling a tax debt of £164,000 and staving off a potential winding-up order, only to see this unexpected second problem arise.

The prospect of a takeover would be improved if the club were to emerge debt-free from administration and that is now the aim having narrowly avoided a third winding-up order in just over a year but coach John Kear’s side are expected to face a six-point deduction for the new season after breaching the RFL’s insolvency regulations.

Wakefield are the second Super League club to go into administration in a little over two months after Wrexham-based Crusaders sought protection from creditors in November.

They emerged from the same administrator, Peter O’Hara, six weeks later in the hands of a new company and were given the go-ahead by the RFL to start the new season, although on minus four points. Wakefield, meanwhile, must hope this latest development does not damage their own bid for a Super League licence when they are awarded in July.

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In a statement, Trinity said: “Despite our efforts and those of a number of our fans, we have not been able to secure the funds necessary to pay the amounts due to HMRC and so the company was facing a winding-up petition which would have potentially meant the end of the club that we all love.

“Having run the club for 20 years, we have no wish to see its great history and traditions disappear and so we have no choice but to seek the appointment of an administrator to give the club protection from its creditors.

“We are working with a number of parties who have already expressed an interest in securing the future of the club, its position in the Super League and the benefits that it brings to the local community.

“We wish to see the future of the club resolved as quickly as possible so that the Wildcats can enter the 2011 season with stable financial and commercial foundations.

“With the right ownership and support from the fans and the local community, we are confident that the club will have a bright and successful future.”

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