Marc Peard analyses Joseph Parker's title fight in Wales, and breaks down the Warriors' success with former player and boxing guru Monty Betham.
A Tongan-US consortium say they have reached a verbal agreement to buy the Warriors and are working to finalise the deal in writing.
A Fairfax report today declared the NRL club has been sold with the foreign group, headed by CEO and Hawaiian businessman Richard Fale, beating the Auckland Rugby League's rival bid to buy the Warriors from current owner Eric Watson.
Fale expects the agreement will be formalised in the coming days but admits they are yet to gain exclusivity, however Warriors chairman Jim Doyle denied the sale had been finalised.
"We have a verbal agreement on the sale right now and we are still definitely the biggest offer on the table," Fale said.
"We are not in any exclusivity now until we sign these documents which will probably happen in the next three days or so.
Fale's group have been in discussions to buy the Auckland-based franchise for weeks, with Watson reportedly seeking $24 million for the club he first purchased back in 2000.
The ARL last week submitted their own proposal to Watson's representatives and are understood to have made a cash offer for $20 million, but were still working through details around their sale and purchase agreement.
Mystery surrounds the full make-up of Fale's syndicate, which involves a pair of former NFL players and Super Bowl-winning brothers, Ma'ake and Chris Kemoeatu.
Fale has said that current NFL stars are also involved in their bid but he was unable to confirm who, as they are still to clarify with the NFL whether contracted players are allowed to be involved with a rival sporting organisation.
"We still haven't got complete clarity on that yet," Fale said.
"There may be a little bit of touchiness around that and we don't want to hurt any of the guys that are in our group if there's any kind of tension or issues with that.
"I would have thought they would have been able to sort that out sooner rather than later because it is in the off-season. People are on break and they don't want to have to do business when it's the off-season."
Fale says they are sensitive to the NFL's stance as they don't want to jeopardise plans to eventually launch an expansion NRL franchise in the US.
His consortium are also exploring plans to establish a Hawaii-based Pacific Island Super Rugby franchise, and the members of their syndicate are undecided on which project they will align themselves with.
"Our group may be splitting into two with some of them going to chase after that Pacific Islander franchise based in Hawaii," he said.
"We have the support of the state of Hawaii to make that happen.
"We do have significant expansion plans – we want to talk to the NRL about an expansion franchise in the United States at some point in the near future.
"Because there are other moving pieces with this, who is going to be directly involved with this Warriors acquisition, and who is going to go into the other bid with the Pacific Island Super Rugby franchise, we haven't 100 per cent sorted that out yet."
ARL chairman Cameron McGregor was surprised by news of the reported sale and doubts that a deal had been finalised with Fale's group.
While the ARL's offer is smaller than what Fale's consortium is prepared to pay, it's understood the straight-forward nature of their bid has kept them in the hunt.
