Fife Flyers for sale: what do you get, where are the buyers, and what are the options?

There is genuine concern for the club’s immediate future, with the worst case scenario - no hockey at all - looming large in the back of many minds.

Everyone is acutely aware that the clock is ticking for Flyers to secure new owners and set the wheels in motion for next season.

So, what are the options and key issues under debate:

> Why now?

After 28 years at the helm, the day was always going to come when Tom Muir and Jack Wishart called time on their stewardship. Rumours that the directors were looking to stand down have been circulating for a few months, but last week’s statement still came out of nowhere. It was announced via the club’s website and social media channels - no press release was issued - and the ripples were immediate.

And one question was prominent: why now?

It has been a tough, exhausting campaign where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and the buzz that came with Tom Coolen’s arrival proved short lived - the sense it was time to pass the baton on has been growing for some time..

But any interested parties will have little time to analyse the books, do their due diligence, draw up a business plan and get their feet under the table. Flyers’ season ends at the start of April, and if they are to remain in the EIHL then the league will need a definitive answer by mid-May before the fixtures are drawn up.

There is never an optimum time to announce a club is for sale - sparking all manner of worries among fans and players - but fans are wondering why not do it at the start of, or even before, the season and give potential investors a clear overview of what they are getting into?

Amid all the speculation, fans are hoping there is a Plan B at least on the horizon.

When Tom Muir stepped up as part of the consortium along with Jack Wishart, the late John Waring and Tom Muir Snr, that took over Flyers in 1996 he said “too many people care about the club to let it die.”

It seems inconceivable to many that the surviving directors would simply walk away with nothing in place, not after committing so much, but there is no immediate sign of succession planning kicking in, at least publicly.

> So, what do you get? Well, you get the team name and an EIHL franchise - the former is priceless, the latter a completely unknown cost. What exactly do you pay for membership to the league? What you don’t get are any players or a coach as they will all be out of contract.

You will also need to negotiate ice time costs, find a travel budget, and then look at recruitment on and off the ice. Oh yes, and build an off ice team to run the day to day operations.

Flyers said they were looking to bring in support for interim coach Johnny Curran after he was pitched into the headlights in a “precarious” December that took the club to the very brink. The bigger picture was to get someone in to help and get them accustomed to the ‘Fife way’ of working with a view to continuing in 2025-26.

There has been no update since that big announcement, but the club has been speaking to several people. Whether that process can go much further has to be doubtful - any new owner will surely want to have the final say on who is behind the bench.

> So where are the buyers? We can rule out any fan based purchase, unless there’s a Fifer who has secretly won the National Lottery jackpot, and even then they’d find their fortune quickly depleted as the running costs became apparent. Owning an EIHL team is a) eyewateringly expensive and b) incredibly time consuming. As much as the idea might appeal, the reality is this is no time to play fantasy ice hockey.

Fans have already tagged Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds in tweets after he and fellow star Rob McIlhenny bought out Wrexham FC for £2million and transformed the team. He has also been linked to hockey clubs in North America, and this month saw his home town football team,Vancouver Whitecaps try to woo him, so we got competition!

There are some local names being thrown into the mix - hockey sponsors or businessmen with an interest in the game - but no-one has yet broken cover.

Could there be a consortium along the lines of the one that came together in ’96? Running a business and a hockey club is too much for one owner - but, put together a small group of investors, and create a professional, full-time structure off ice to oversee the day to day business, and you have a club fit for the EIHL era.

One businessman with a long-standing interest in the sport outlined one way forward - start with a modest sale price, create a consortium which generates workable investment to stabilise and rebuild and, importantly, protect and continue the legacy of the current owners.

> What if no-one does a deal to take the club over?

No new owner/investor, no top flight hockey and the end of 87-years of sporting tradition - that’s the doomsday scenario.

The fact the league has deferred Flyers’ EIHL franchise for two seasons suggests it may be an option. Mothball for 2025-26 and use the time to secure the ownership needed to create a new structure fit for purpose in 2026-27.

One other theory floated - would Mr Muir bankroll the 2025-26 season of hockey to allow the club to cross the bridge into new ownership? That’s a huge financial commitment, and one with no say in how it’d be spent either. The team and ice rink are inextricably linked so it has some logic, but would you sit back and watch someone else spend your money?

> If someone takes over, what are their options?

EIHL, NIHL or SNL? Three very different leagues and directions of travel.

Flyers went back to grassroots hockey for seven seasons until they felt the time was right to join the Elite League in 2011. The club has never been a perfect fit in an import-sodden league where they have to compete with teams on significantly bigger budgets and playing out of arenas in cities.

But they have endured - there have been good seasons and high spots as well as some grim campaigns, with the post-lockdown years leaving the club increasingly adrift.

Not everyone in Kirkcaldy loves Elite League hockey, but it is still the only show in town. Off the ice, Flyers’ thrawness has often frustrated many within the league, but, at the same time, the league wants them on board. Many are convinced Flyers are the proverbial sleeping giant, one happy to slumber in their old school rink with its tinfoil roof and cartons of stovies in the cafe - but what if they awoke, roared and really rattled the cages of the big guns?

> Life beyond the EIHL? Swoop one letter and the EIHL becomes the NIHL - but a switch for Fife isn’t that simple.

The National Ice Hockey League may be tier two and offer a good standard of import hockey - with a better balance that ought, in theory, to be perfect for Fife - but it is one almost entirely based south of the border.

Solway Sharks are the sole Scottish representatives, and their geography makes it much easier to compete across the border. Shoehorning Fife into the mix changes the budgets of every single one of its 11 teams, and not in a good way.

On paper you could divide the teams into regionalised conferences, but whichever clubs land in with Fife and Solway won’t be happy, and not a single thing can be done until a new owner is on board in Kirkcaldy. Change of that magnitude can’t be done in such a short timescale. Can it? Is it even on the radar of the NIHL?

> Going down?

Below the NIHL sit southern and northern sections, and Flyers would be an easy fit for the latter, but that means a drop down two levels, making any long-term aspiration to get back to the EIHL much more challenging.,

And then there is the SNL, Flyers’ grassroots home when the league imploded 20 years ago. Dropping down in the mid 2000s kept the club on life support and pucks continued to be fired around rather empty rinks as many fans decided this just wasn’t the hockey they wanted to watch.

It took a decade to get back to top flight and start all over again. Few fans think they can pull that trick off one again, and the SNL is already home to Kirkcaldy Kestrels, so the option just becomes clouded in confusion.

> The future? Dark clouds on the horizon for sure, but with a lingering hope that someone is waiting in the wings to write the next chapter.