Man City and Man United snubs opens door for Sale links with new Premier League club

Alex Sanderson will be casting more than just an admiring glance towards Gallagher PREM rivals Saracens, Bristol Bears and Leicester Tigers this weekend when they take their games to bigger stadiums, because it’s something that he wants for Sale Sharks.

Saracens will take on PREM leaders Northampton Saints at the magnificent Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, while the Bears will take their clash with Harlequins across the Severn Bridge to Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, and Leicester will square off against Gloucester at Aston Villa’s Villa Park.

It’s 15 years since the Sharks took their Aviva Premiership clash with London Irish to the then-named Reebok Stadium, the home of Bolton Wanderers, but they have found it difficult to find one of the big football grounds willing to play hosts at the right time.

But with England set to play Fiji in an ‘away’ fixture at Everton’s brand spanking new Hill Dickinson Stadium in Liverpool this summer, he feels that the time is right to give it another nudge.

“Four or five years ago, when the purse strings were a little tighter, it wasn’t considered a profitable enough or a feasible enough venture. But more recently, we struggled to get the pitches. The football teams won’t give them up.

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“(Man) City don’t need our money, (Man) United won’t let you play until the end of the season. The Reebok Stadium, for its location, I don’t think was a worthwhile opportunity to get crowds from our locality for the most part. I’ve heard about Everton.

“So, we are looking at it. I do want it. It’s good exposure. If we’re all right to take a bit of a hit for one or two years, like Quins showed and Sarries showed, then by the third or fourth year of your big game, you actually start filling out and making a profit.

“But it takes a couple of years of speculating, I guess. Every team needs it. Every team needs more, and more interest, more investment, more innovation to get to multiple streams of revenue, but it’s a little bit above my pay grade. It’s something that I’ll mention again,” he told RugbyPass.