He’s never one to shy away from the headlines... and now former Salford owner Marwan Koukash is hoping to tap into Liverpool’s sporting market by forming a rugby league club in the city. Together with Liverpool-based property magnate Luke Backhouse and founder of St Helens-based businessman Andrew Mikhail, Koukash is keen to form the new side following his failed takeover attempt at Widnes Vikings, League Weekly report. https://mobile.twitter.com/LiverpoolRLF ... sh-2503995

He’s never one to shy away from the headlines... and now former Salford owner Marwan Koukash is hoping to tap into Liverpool’s sporting market by forming a rugby league club in the city. Together with Liverpool-based property magnate Luke Backhouse and founder of St Helens-based businessman Andrew Mikhail, Koukash is keen to form the new side following his failed takeover attempt at Widnes Vikings, League Weekly report. https://mobile.twitter.com/LiverpoolRLF ... sh-2503995

https://twitter.com/LiverpoolRLFC/statu ... 69282?s=20

https://twitter.com/LiverpoolRLFC/statu ... 69282?s=20

IS that who that is? i saw that pop up last week with initial tweets being fairly snotty and wonder d what i had missed. makes sense now

if done properly with a good solid long term strategy, it can only be a good thing, i hope Marwan as learned from his past mistakes and realised you cannot just throw money around it needs to be step by step growth.

Yeah Luke Backhouse is a big kid and not someone to jump into something like this with.

Whilst bidding for Widnes, he was constantly on Instagram having a go at Widnes fans from our other messageboard.

That being said, if all is true there won’t be a club in England with more money than what these 3 have. They mean business and it’ll be very interesting to follow, Liverpool is football through and through and I can’t see it taking off.

Would they not be better off buying Widnes and just moving it 15 miles to the left?

I've often mused what the perfect conditions would be to set up a new Rugby League club. You look at how it's happened in the past and other variables and I've decided that what you definitely need is:

Set it up in a virgin area with little to no grassroots knowledge or interest in Rugby League (it's imperative not to have a thriving Amateur scene first).
Make sure you have fickle moneybags owners who will give up on the project quickly if it doesn't mysteriously work in year 2 or 3. The guys that were at Doncaster, Featherstone or Bridgend to name just a few, being the ones you need to mimic.
Try, if at all possible, to go into an area which views Soccer as close to a religion.

They both went in to buy Widnes only to spit their dummy out and slag the club off straight after.

No doubt if we had been bought, we’d have been rebranded straight away.

Why give yourself such a challenge though. Starting a new club will already be hard enough wherever it is. But in a city with two huge premier league football clubs that lives and breathes the sport? I can't help but think they'd have better luck elsewhere.

Where would they play, Tranmere or similar?

Toronto have proved what can be achieved. They dont just have 2 sporting teams to contend with, but 12 other professional sports teams and have still made a success out of it

I’m from Widnes and work in Liverpool, it gets referred to as funny ball sport and beyond that, there’s no interest on any level.

Rugby union is a little different but still not a great deal.