One of the best ways of losing money over the past few years has been investing in football clubs. Fans buy the shares not on the basis that they might or might not be a good investment but through tribal, not to say blind, loyalty.
Owning a rugby club has not been an easy way to riches, either. Wasps, one of the better-known names in the game and owner of one of the biggest grounds in the sport — and one of the country’s biggest convention centres, to boot — is raising between £25 million and £35 million through the issue of retail bonds offering a coupon of 6.5 per cent, among the highest returns available on the London Stock Exchange’s quoted Orb market.