Birmingham City owners eye Premiership Rugby franchise as RFU prepares for 10-team ring-fence

Birmingham, England — The American investment firm that controls Birmingham City Football Club has opened exploratory talks about acquiring a professional rugby union franchise in England, The Raine Group and Deloitte have confirmed, as the Rugby Football Union’s council prepares to vote on Friday on a dramatic restructuring of the sport’s top flight.

Knighthead Capital Management, which bought the Championship club in 2023, is among a cluster of U.S. investors that have signalled interest in joining a revamped Premiership Rugby that will be locked at ten clubs until at least 2030, after which the competition is scheduled to expand in carefully managed stages.

Under the proposals to be ratified at Twickenham, promotion and relegation would be suspended for six seasons. From 2030 an open-tender process, modelled on rugby league’s points-based licensing system, will invite applications from former top-tier sides such as London Irish, Wasps and Worcester Warriors, ambitious Championship outfits including Ealing Trailfinders, and entirely new franchises backed by private equity.

Sources close to the discussions said Knighthead views a rugby franchise as the logical next step in a multi-sport portfolio that already features a 49 per cent stake in the Birmingham Phoenix Hundred cricket team and majority ownership of the Birmingham Panthers netball franchise. The group has pledged to invest between £2 billion and £3 billion in a proposed “Sports Quarter” development that would deliver a 62,000-seat stadium, a 15,000-capacity indoor arena and, potentially, a 10,000-seat venue shared by Birmingham City Women and a professional rugby tenant.

The West Midlands has been without a Premiership presence since the Coventry-based Wasps entered administration and were liquidated in 2022. Regional appetite for the sport is underlined by the long-standing Birmingham Moseley Rugby Club, founded 153 years ago and a founding member of the first national league in 1987, now competing in the third tier.

Any new entrant would be required to purchase a so-called “P share”, currently valued at approximately £12 million, and must submit a formal expression of interest two years before the intended season of admission. That timetable gives Knighthead until 2028 to decide whether to proceed with a bid.

Although second-tier Championship clubs have voiced opposition to ring-fencing, the RFU council endorsed “the rationale and the need for change” in October, and Friday’s vote is expected to pass, clearing the way for the new franchise model.

Knighthead declined to comment, but rugby sources confirmed that talks remain at an early stage and no final decision has been taken.