Worcester Warriors: Former CEO Jim O'Toole announces bid to buy troubled club
- Published
Jim O'Toole stood down as Worcester chief executive in June 2017
Worcester Warriors could be saved from going into administration following an approach from a consortium led by former chief executive Jim O'Toole.
Irishman O'Toole, who still lives in the city, has told BBC Hereford & Worcester he has had serious interest from an American investor, which would also involving local businesses.
Warriors remain in dialogue with HMRC over their unpaid tax bill.
"I just don't want this city without a professional rugby club," said O'Toole.
"I still have a big emotional attachment to Worcester and I just want to be able to help in some small way. It's about saving the club, but in a sustainable fashion.
"Over the last week I have been contacted by an American business that I was doing some work with in a different sports marketing field.
"They were aware of the Worcester situation and have asked me to put together a consortium of local business people who would come in with me to acquire the club and create a long-term and sustainable business. A mix of some international money and some local Worcester people who have the best interests of the club at heart."
O'Toole first joined Worcester in 2015, having previously worked at London Irish, before departing in 2017.
Since then he has worked as a sports consultant, based in the United Kingdom, but working with some companies abroad.
Warriors are currently owned by financier Jason Whittingham and lawyer Colin Goldring, who took over the club in December 2018 - six months after being appointed as directors at English Football League side Morecambe, who are unaffected by the Warriors situation as there is no direct tie-up between the clubs.
If Warriors are forced into administration, they would be the first Premiership club to do so since Richmond in 1999 - and be forced to start the new season with an automatic 35-point penalty, in accordance with the current RFU regulations.
But O'Toole is hoping for a rapid conclusion to avoid such a prospect.
"As you can see from the dismay over the past week or so, we're at a very critical stage.
"But our guys are ready to move quickly and, if the other side are ready to move as quickly, it's achievable. Aside from the business opportunity, they'd just like to be the good guys who come in and save the day."
He told BBC Hereford & Worcester that his proposed consortium would "build on some of the ideas the current owners had".
"They weren't all bad ideas, by the way," he said. "There's some great ideas in terms of using the assets at Sixways, but in a slightly different way, and in a more sustainable fashion, that makes it a decent business but also a community asset.
"One of the main planks of our plan would be that a percentage of the shares would be made available to supporters."
One key factor is that the consortium would want to buy the whole ground and the area around it, some of which was sold off last week by owners Whittingham and Goldring to another business owned by them, Mq Property Ltd.
"The assets would have to be in a certain place for it to happen," said O'Toole. "Not fragmented the way they are at the moment, as I understand it."
Jim O'Toole was talking to BBC Hereford & Worcester's Andrew Easton.