Wasps funded a move to Coventry with a £35M bond, then went into administration in 2022

BBC Sport reported on 18 October 2022 that Wasps, the Premiership rugby club based in Coventry, had gone into administration the day before. CEO Stephen Vaughan said the club had been 'timed out' in its attempts to be saved, and that 'the past caught up with us': it had made large losses ever since moving to Coventry, and the underlying debt from the previous six years proved too much once Covid hit.

The club moved from High Wycombe in December 2014 with a £13.4M loan from Coventry City Council to buy the Ricoh Arena. That loan and a £10M loan from owner Derek Richardson were repaid with a seven-year, 6.5% bond scheme in April 2015, at £2,000 per bond, raising £35M. Signings in summer 2016 did not produce the expected trophies, crowds dwindled when initial cut-price ticket offers ended, and the club lost two years of revenue when Coventry City left to play in Birmingham after another rent row.

Bondholders were due repayment in May 2022, but Wasps pushed it to the end of June. Vaughan said refinancing was a huge part of what was needed and 'we just didn't get there quick enough'. Administrators FRP announced 167 immediate job losses, including the entire playing staff, head coach Lee Blackett and Vaughan himself.

167 immediate job losses including the whole playing staff and the CEO, plus automatic relegation from the Premiership unless it was lifted.

The club repaid a council loan and an owner loan with a £35M, 6.5% seven-year bond, adding debt that had to be refinanced by 2022.

Crowds dwindled when its initial cut-price ticket offers ended, and expensive signings did not bring trophies.

Wasps lost two years of revenue when Coventry City moved to Birmingham after a rent row.

Covid and an economic crisis then stopped it refinancing the bonds in time, per Vaughan.

Financing a club's move with fixed-rate bonds works only if crowds, tickets and cost cuts outrun the debt; a pandemic made the unpaid loans impossible to refinance.

Wasps faced automatic relegation to the Championship unless it used the 'no fault insolvency' loophole in RFU rules. The CBS Arena stayed open because its owner had not gone into administration. Vaughan said talks with possible buyers continued and the club wanted to stay in Coventry.