It has now become apparent that Wasps are very close to sealing a deal to buy Coventry's Ricoh Arena with the intent of moving their games there. It's all been very hush-hush until now and, while that might have been due to commercial imperatives, Wasps must have welcomed the side-effect of avoiding negative opinion and opposition.
It's not difficult to work out why there might be negative opinion as this move seems utterly idiotic.
Wasps are a west London club. That was confirmed to me every time I spoke to a Wasps fan in London - or even a rugby neutral - about their then mooted move to Brentford and heard hope. Wasps returning home. I'd even been planning to go a few Wasps games if that happened. Some will tell you the move to Wycombe was only ever sold as temporary before finding a London home. Now their club is lining up to tell them they'll be moving even further away.
Meanwhile, there's a large number of Coventry City fans who will be feeling betrayed and hurt if this goes through. The Ricoh, in their eyes, is Coventry's natural ground. To see it handed over to a rugby club from London that doesn't even want to move its training base and players there instead does not sound like the most promising of introductions. Of course, Wasps will mainly be focusing on Coventry's rugby fans. My guess would be there's two kinds of rugby fans in Coventry. There's those who travel to support Northampton, Worcester or Leicester, and who are presumably quite set in their ways. Then there's those who support Coventry, because it's Coventry and they're from Coventry, and Wasps will not be from Coventry.
One can only presume the Wasps management think it will end out differently. The gods only know why. It's not like they'll even be able to claim they're a proper Coventry club, as apparently they're retaining their London training base. Hi people of Coventry - come and support a bunch of boys from London up here for a day trip! And they certainly wouldn't be a London club, as London clubs play as close to London as possible. You can go out and dress it up better for marketing but that is a difficult and unlovely underlying reality to hide.
Spare a thought for the players. The commute is probably better than actually moving to Coventry, but no one signed on for that, and you've got to wonder at what point the club would try moving the whole circus there. There are three London clubs who'd probably love to asset strip Wasps if possible. Rumours have it that Saracens are already making overtures to Joe Launchbury, and by rumours I mean Dai Young's said it, who should probably know. Launchbury's wondering whether Wasps are a club with a top 4 future where he can challenge for trophies. If it becomes a tight call, at what point does a schlep up to the Midlands to play in front of an empty stadium enter his thinking?
Of course, while a player might wonder if they've got plans for moving the entire operation up to Coventry at some point, which could be very inconvenient for his family, any new fan in Coventry must wonder whether the retention of a London training base means this too might be temporary
This could go on and on. There are main potential riffs on the main theme of "Wasps are about to make their club unloved and untrusted" but the owners don't seem to have noticed. Or cared. Or asked.
And that's pretty shitty.
Here's hoping that it stings them in the arse.
