WASPS could be under new ownership by the end of the month.

It’s understood that negotiations with potential investors have gone through a number of phases already and are now reaching the due diligence stage.

More than one party is believed to still be in the running, although Wasps would not confirm this.

Director of rugby Dai Young said: “Things are moving in a positive direction and when they are confirmed it will be a big cloud lifted off the whole environment.

“It’s far more positive than before Christmas and there is a lot more confidence about it being sorted out quickly.”

The sooner the better now that players who are out of contract this summer are open to approaches.

Young said: “I know I can work off the budget I’ve got now, which means I can pretty much retain most of the players I’ve got here.

“But to attract new players you need confirmation that the budget is going to be increased.

“We can show interest, but no player is going to commit until they know what the future is for Wasps. That’s understandable.

“Players are showing an interest, but obviously they want to know we’re going in the right direction first.”

However, Young insists the club is still a few months away from crisis point when it comes to recruitment.

He said: “It’s not a massive problem now. It’s still quite early and I don’t think players really want to make decisions in January.

“But if we went into March and things aren’t clear I think it would be a problem attracting the quality we wanted.

“It wouldn’t be a problem attracting squad players because they want a contract, but with the real quality players, players who have five or six clubs after them, we’d be vulnerable to them going elsewhere.

“It’s not a problem now though. We can go about our business as we would normally and when the nitty gritty comes I’d like to think things will be sorted.”

Fans will hope so, because the squad clearly needs an influx of quality and quantity before the next campaign.

Young said: “We need five or six quality players, but I think we also need three or four squad players on top of that.

“Look at Exeter, they’ve done really well because they’ve got a lot of squad players.

“So we’re looking at five or six real quality players to add to our first team and probably four squad players as well.”