We Are The Owners, We’ll Do What We Want

As ever with Coventry City, positive news in the shape of the win at MK Dons is followed by a downbeat story, this time regarding the receeding propsect of the club coming back to the Ricoh Arena in the near future after the apparent rejection of an offer to play there rent-free (with the club being responsible for matchday costs and not receiving a share of revenues).

Mark Labovitch, Otium`s non-executive director, has been quoted as saying: ‘There is no prospect of us returning to the former landlord/tenant relationship with ACL, a company which bled the club dry for many years over two generations of owners, and wilfully sought to damage the club with actions which led to needless points deductions over the last two seasons.

‘Such inexplicable actions have severely damaged our promotion chances. It is a credit to Steven Pressley and the players that so much of the damage caused by ACL has been made good.’

It is unfortunate that Mr Labovitch uses Steven Pressley and his team to try and score points against ACL but it is also clear that the pressure is growing on the council to change their stance and deal with the owners of the football club regarding a sale of the Ricoh Arena. A number of comments, for instance, posted underneath David Conn’s article in The Guardian this week accused him of portraying a one-sided view of events.

‘Power’

As evidenced by Hull City owner Assem Allam’s plans to change the name of the club and the switch from blue shirts to red that Cardiff City have undergone under Vincent Tan, owners hold all the power within the game, something can that only be changed by legislation.

‘I think the chairman has put something like £70m into this club, so without him there wouldn’t be a club or a ‘Hull City’ – it would be down the tubes,’ said Steve Bruce on Sunday after protests against Mr Allam’s views.

‘We have to respect his wishes, but on the other hand he has to understand too that a lot of people feel very, very strongly about this.’

Fans in this situation have a decision. Hull and Cardiff fans (helped of course by the fact that their teams were promoted to the Premier League last season) have mostly chosen to keep attending matches. Coventry fans (in a slightly different situation and with a team that has been relegated under the current owners) have opted to stay away and express their support in a different way.