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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 10:29 - Jul 4 by danehoop
It would be funny if the League said no.
The league absolutely should say no. There is no reason whatsoever for them to go to Northampton other than because the owners want to take them there. It's like a mini MK Dons situation.
Coventry City dice with death as relegation sets out a bleak future
An ill-fated move to a new stadium they could not afford to rent even in the Championship leaves the Sky Blues in dire danger
Coventry City's Richard Keogh is sent off on the day when defeat by Doncaster consigned the Sky Blues to relegation. Photograph: Adam Fradgley/Action Images
Coventry City's fall from the Championship on Saturday prompted reflections immediately on the club's 34 years in the top flight, from the 1967 promotion managed by Jimmy Hill, to relegation under Gordon Strachan as recently as 2001. Yet it is partly a legacy of overspending on players to stay in the Premier League, just as wages were becoming galactic, and debts run up after relegation that have landed the Sky Blues in this genuine crisis.
Coventry have been relegated to League One with a threadbare team. Merely tenants in their Ricoh Arena home, they have defaulted on the rent, and the club's venture capitalist owners, Sisu, are considering pulling their funding. Coventry city council, which funded the arena's construction and is its 50% owner, is rejecting Sisu's requests to reduce the £1.2m annual rent, and calling on the financiers to sell the club if they cannot improve its calamitous fortunes.
"Sisu have allowed experienced players to leave, losing the backbone of the team, there is constant change of executives running the club, they say they are losing £500,000 a month yet identify the £100,000-a-month rent as the root of their problems," says John Mutton, Labour leader of the council. "If they cannot return Coventry City into a successful club, they should go now and let others pick up the pieces."
Tim Fisher, the latest chief executive hired in December by Sisu to try to salvage £30m lost since buying the club as a planned Premier League-returning investment in 2008, accepts that selling more seasoned players last summer — including the centre-half Ben Turner and midfielder Aron Gunarsson, both to Cardiff City — then having to overplay promising young players this season under Andy Thorn as manager has been self-defeating. The club lost £6m in the year to 31 May 2010, its most recently published accounts, and the accounts for 2011, statutorily due on 29 February, have still not been filed. This, explains Fisher, is because Sisu are pondering whether to continue funding the club as a going concern.
That is prompting anxiety not only among fans jaded by a decade of decline, but City's staff, who have seen the swingeing job cuts when clubs fall into administration, while players' wages are protected. Fisher sought to rally the staff after the 2-0 home defeat by Doncaster Rovers that consigned Coventry to relegation, and says he is striving to keep Sisu committed.
"My key role is to convince the owner to finance this asset," says Fisher, who is a banker specialising in financially "distressed" companies. "Coventry City is a fallen angel, a Premiership brand now in the third tier. The club has an incredibly loyal fan base and I am confident in telling the owners that if they continue to fund it, it will bounce back to the Championship."
Fisher says he withheld the £100,000 rent for last month in an effort to "focus minds" on what he claims are its "unsustainable" terms. City not only pay the hefty rent to play in the arena, but receive none of the income from the advertising, food, drink or other events at a venue of sufficient quality to be hosting Olympic football matches this summer.
Mutton painstakingly recites the grim history of the club's botched move to the Ricoh when City had debts of more than £50m and were shipping further losses. After 2001's relegation coveted players including Craig Bellamy and Chris Kirkland were sold but still the debts swelled. The money from selling Highfield Road was not huge and the club could not ultimately finance either buying the land it had identified for the arena, nor building it. Asked to provide necessary funding, the council did so, for a 50% share in the arena management company. The club could not even buy the other half, so a charity associated with a director, Derek Higgs, bought 50%, and the club, when it finally entered the stadium in 2005, did so as a tenant, always on these same terms. The club still has the right to buy the Higgs charity's stake, but has never exercised it.
Fisher says he needs the rent and terms reduced to give the club a chance of firm foundations, with £1.2m a year very difficult for a League One club to pay, but Mutton derides that idea as half-baked and would lead only to the arena becoming loss-making as well. He argues that local businessmen Gary Hoffman and Joe Elliott are prepared to take over, if Sisu pull out, depending on the state the club is in.
"If Sisu cannot invest to enable the club to be successful again, they should cut their losses now," says the council leader, uncompromisingly. Sisu, silent at present, are considering whether to stay involved at all.
In the meantime Coventry, whose survival in the top flight warmed the soul of sentimentalists, are down in the third tier for the first time since promotion in 1964.
It Is What It Is !!
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 15:10 - Jul 4 with 1385 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 14:25 - Jul 4 by Northernr
The league absolutely should say no. There is no reason whatsoever for them to go to Northampton other than because the owners want to take them there. It's like a mini MK Dons situation.
I'm a little out of the loop, please help me understand how a move to Northampton is better than a rent-free Ricoh in Cov itself?
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 15:23 - Jul 4 with 1363 views
I reckon they may be able to go through with this and drive the people who own the ground out of business so they can buy the ground back.
Worst case is the fans get the AFC Coventry scenario set up by their trust and get themselves slowly back to their natural level. They'll have fun doing it and be safe from predators for ever more.
Not often I feel benevolent towards Coventry but the fans could win long term.
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 16:04 - Jul 4 with 1309 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 15:31 - Jul 4 by hoof_hearted
I reckon they may be able to go through with this and drive the people who own the ground out of business so they can buy the ground back.
Worst case is the fans get the AFC Coventry scenario set up by their trust and get themselves slowly back to their natural level. They'll have fun doing it and be safe from predators for ever more.
Not often I feel benevolent towards Coventry but the fans could win long term.
The council own the ground through a holding company, and council is not going to go out of business.
Another possibility is that SISU are trying to blackmail the council into giving them (SISU) the ground for nothing and thus get their hands on a significant bit of state property, or have a Swansea-style arrangement where SISU don't pay any rent.
Air hostess clique
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 16:08 - Jul 4 with 1299 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 16:04 - Jul 4 by TacticalR
The council own the ground through a holding company, and council is not going to go out of business.
Another possibility is that SISU are trying to blackmail the council into giving them (SISU) the ground for nothing and thus get their hands on a significant bit of state property, or have a Swansea-style arrangement where SISU don't pay any rent.
This is exactly it.
And as for starting up against in an AFC Coventry style being the worst case scenario, I'd actually say that's the best case. What exactly are they clinging to here? No ground, no training ground, no team - it's an empty shell of a club being moved 35 miles down the road so some faceless corporation can try and get hold of an arena for nothing.
If Coventry fans started again, with a new team, playing at - for instance - the rugby ground in Coventry they could potentially kill the shell stone dead. They'd then have a Coventry City that they owned, without debt, that could rocket back up the league to its natural level, which is probably significantly higher than what Wimbledon managed given their catchment area and one club city status.
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 17:04 - Jul 4 with 1239 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 16:08 - Jul 4 by Northernr
This is exactly it.
And as for starting up against in an AFC Coventry style being the worst case scenario, I'd actually say that's the best case. What exactly are they clinging to here? No ground, no training ground, no team - it's an empty shell of a club being moved 35 miles down the road so some faceless corporation can try and get hold of an arena for nothing.
If Coventry fans started again, with a new team, playing at - for instance - the rugby ground in Coventry they could potentially kill the shell stone dead. They'd then have a Coventry City that they owned, without debt, that could rocket back up the league to its natural level, which is probably significantly higher than what Wimbledon managed given their catchment area and one club city status.
They'd probably not be allowed to call themselves Coventry City FC so a lot of supporters wouldn't feel it is the same club. There was a thread on their forums saying exactly that a few months ago.
I don't agree with the mindset but a lot of supporters feel that way unfortunately.
Also I think the obligatory AFC in front of any supporter owned football club rising from the ashes needs to be stopped.
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 17:35 - Jul 4 with 1208 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 17:06 - Jul 4 by Clive_Anderson
They'd probably not be allowed to call themselves Coventry City FC so a lot of supporters wouldn't feel it is the same club. There was a thread on their forums saying exactly that a few months ago.
I don't agree with the mindset but a lot of supporters feel that way unfortunately.
Also I think the obligatory AFC in front of any supporter owned football club rising from the ashes needs to be stopped.
surely there was a rent free deal for the ricoh?? imo a place doomed from the start, i recall a qpr coach driving by and it was nearly finished and was then the "jaguar" stadium with signs up all over..then that went wrong, not a good start or omen. i think telford would be too good for them though.
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 18:18 - Jul 4 with 1173 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 16:04 - Jul 4 by TacticalR
The council own the ground through a holding company, and council is not going to go out of business.
Another possibility is that SISU are trying to blackmail the council into giving them (SISU) the ground for nothing and thus get their hands on a significant bit of state property, or have a Swansea-style arrangement where SISU don't pay any rent.
If the council end up sitting on an asset that makes a loss because they have no main tenant (and the leaseholders have gone bust) then they are even more likely to sell it and especially if it's seen as a vote winner to support the local football club "coming home".
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 19:54 - Jul 4 with 1124 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 18:18 - Jul 4 by hoof_hearted
If the council end up sitting on an asset that makes a loss because they have no main tenant (and the leaseholders have gone bust) then they are even more likely to sell it and especially if it's seen as a vote winner to support the local football club "coming home".
Probably this that SISU are banking on.
Air hostess clique
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 20:15 - Jul 4 with 1097 views
Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 17:06 - Jul 4 by Clive_Anderson
They'd probably not be allowed to call themselves Coventry City FC so a lot of supporters wouldn't feel it is the same club. There was a thread on their forums saying exactly that a few months ago.
I don't agree with the mindset but a lot of supporters feel that way unfortunately.
Also I think the obligatory AFC in front of any supporter owned football club rising from the ashes needs to be stopped.
What's so wrong with sticking AFC in front?
If it means fans getting their clubs back, I'm all for it!
The Board of Directors of The Football League has reluctantly approved an application by Otium Entertainment Group - the Administrator's preferred bidder for Coventry City FC Limited - for Coventry City to play its home matches at Northampton Town's Sixfields Stadium for an initial period of three seasons.
In the Board's view, it was a matter of "deep regret" that it had not proved possible for the club's proposed purchaser to reconcile its differences with the owners of the Ricoh Arena - Arena Coventry Limited (ACL). However, with the new season less than four weeks away, the Board required certainty as to where the Club would play its matches from the start of the new campaign.
Nevertheless, the Board's approval remains entirely conditional on the Club ultimately exiting administration in accordance with The Football League's conditions and achieving a successful transfer of its League share.
Otium will also be required to provide a Performance Bond of £1m with The Football League as an assurance of the club's commitment to return to the Coventry area.
Football League Chairman, Greg Clarke, said: "The Football League believes that clubs should play in the towns and cities from which they take their name. Nonetheless, from time to time, the Board is asked to consider temporary relocations as a means for securing a club's ongoing participation in our competition.
"With no prospect of an agreement being reached between Otium and ACL, the Board was placed in an unenviable position - with the very real possibility of Coventry City being unable to fulfil its fixtures for next season. This would inevitably call into question the Club's continued membership of The Football League.
"The Board did not take this decision lightly and it remains a matter of deep regret that the two parties involved cannot come to an agreement. I urge both Otium and ACL to continue to explore every possible opportunity to resolve this dispute, for the good of the City of Coventry, its football club and people living in the local community."
The Football League will now continue working with the Administrator and Otium to achieve an exit from Administration in line with the Board's Insolvency Policy.
It Is What It Is !!
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 17:49 - Jul 8 with 962 views
70 mile round trip to watch a side with no chance of promotion in somebody else's ground. Can see them attracting gates of 1,000. But won't usually get that many.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one’s lifetime. (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop
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Coventry Cobblers groundshare on 18:00 - Jul 8 with 940 views
A total cop out. Should have called their bluff. What they going to do if they can't go to Northampton, fold the club, lose all their money? Not likely. More balls at a lesbian wedding than at the football league. Another dangerous precedent set.
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