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CCFC: Deal Or No Deal?

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Vital Coventry wrote earlier on Tuesday in praise of the Coventry Telegraph and their reporting of the SISU/ACL dispute.

Now, thanks to sterling work by Les Reid, we know the details of the deal offered to the club by ACL at Tuesday’s creditors meeting which was adjourned (for the final time we think) until Friday.

Interestingly there has been some negative reaction towards ACL arising from this story with the 10-year rent offer seemingly excluding completely the prospect of the current owners being able to buy part of the Ricoh Arena and only ‘discussions’ about them being able to benefit from the matchday revenues generated.

We have consistently said on this website that SISU’s running of the football club has put them in a position of weakness from which to negotiate a better deal on the Ricoh.

The club have also let down their supporters by portraying the move to Northampton as a ‘done deal’ rather than pushing at every opportunity to remain at the Ricoh while negotiating with ACL and, if necessary, pursuing their alternative plans for a new stadium (the offer that was made to provide the stadium on a cost only basis while CCFC remained in administration presumably still stands which could have seen at least the first home game played there).

‘Alternative’

But ACL (and the city council) must now come in for criticism as well. They have pushed for alternative owners of the football club despite it being SISU who have continued to foot the bills and pay the wages for a lengthy period of time.

Those alternative owners will be offered a share of the Ricoh so why not SISU at some point in the future if the two parties show they can work together?

Ok, SISU are in this to make money but only a multi-millionaire Coventry City supporter who is keen to lose as much of his fortune as possible while owning the Sky Blues wouldn’t be. Preston Haskell certainly wasn’t keen on the club because of his fond memories of walking down King Richard Street to Highfield Road.

And ultimately, if they do make money it will be because the club have turned things around on the pitch and if that is the case then surely there must be some kind of deal done that benefits everybody.




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