The future of Cheshire Jets is up in the air as the British Basketball League is due to begin in mid-September.
Pete Hawkins, who along with former head coach Paul Smith saved the club originally in 2007 when the club struggled with ongoing debts. Five years later. Hawkins who admits that running Cheshire Jets is becoming harder for him personally due to other commitments saw his talks with an unnamed party over a new deal break down this week.
In a statement, Hawkins said: “Over the past six months I have had to make some hard decisions regarding my involvement with, and the future of, the Cheshire Jets BBL team.
“Due to new work responsibilities I now spend long periods travelling outside of the North West. With this in mind I am no longer in a position to continue to lead the running of the Jets BBL professional team. Once this was decided I sat down with the rest of the management team and we started the process of approaching individuals who we felt could steer the club to future successes.
“Back in March, we began exclusive discussions with a preferred party and talks progressed well, unfortunately this week, through no fault of our own it became clear that this the person is unlikely to be taking over the leadership of the club.
“The club now finds itself in the position of looking for a new owner to take over the running of the club ready for the start of the 2012/13 season. Any interested parties should in the first instance contact me on peter.hawkins@jetsbasketball.org.uk to discuss initial proposals.
“The 2012/13 season is due to start mid September; due to the pressing timescale I would ask only serious parties to register their interest.
“I want to make it very clear that this will have no knock on effect to the operation of Jets Foundation – our registered charity – and the many programmes that it runs including the Jets Summer Camp and National League programme both of which will continue to grow in size and success.”
