West Sydney Razorbacks to stay in NBL - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

West Sydney Razorbacks to stay in NBL

By Katherine Field 15/02/2007 07:48:16 PM Comments (0)

The West Sydney Razorbacks are refusing to name their new investors, who have saved them from being kicked out of the NBL.

With just 45 minutes to go before becoming extinct in the league, the Razorbacks faxed their "commitment to compete" form to the NBL, securing their spot for the 2007/08 season.

The club was set a deadline by the NBL to show they had secured new financial backers after long-term owner Canterbury Leagues Club informed West Sydney before Christmas it was reducing its involvement.

Razorbacks chairman Tony Looby said last-minute approval from the leagues club about the new investors had given the Razorbacks the green-light to sign the form.

Looby said the club would release more details about the financial backers in the next few days.

"We're not being coy here, we want to make sure that our structure is infallible, that we can just go forward with the confidence that we've done in our first 10 years in the league," Looby said.

"We just need the time to put our structure together finally.

"But to be quite honest we've got some very good parties involved."

It comes a day after the Razorback's request to the NBL board for a fourth extension until March 8 to show they had secured financial backing.

Looby said the Razorbacks always had interested investors, but was hindered by the approval process.

"We already had financial backers, it was just a matter of confirming them," Looby said.

"There's no point going into this league and just being there for one year, whilst we had had good commitment it was really a matter of tying that up and getting assurities that we were doing the right thing.

"Canterbury needed the comfort that it was going to be a good exit branch.

"We needed to be sure that the people to whom we were talking were able to fulfill the commitments involved in running a team."

Looby said the quality of the investors showed the NBL was in great shape.

"By us being able to get other investors involved it shows that the NBL is starting to come back as a sport," he said.

"It's been through a down period, but there's no doubt that it's coming back because we've been able to attract good and qualified investors in respect of taking us to the next step."

The NBL's spokesman Marc Howard said it was a welcome relief that the Razorbacks would be included in the 2007/08 season.

"They've submitted that form and obviously they're feeling pretty confident that they're good to go for the next season," he said.

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