why we are so dissatisfied with SISU and could we expect any better off new owners? (1 Viewer)

[bigfatronssba]

With fans who take the approach of the above two we frankly deserve all we get. Unless the attitude changes we will never improve regardless of ownership.

That is why many supporters (not people with my thought processes) have to accept some responsibility for the current plight.

OK, so please explain how this would have been different if the club owned the Ricoh over then last few years?

Losses would be £55m rather than £70m?

What a success that would be!

 

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[oakey]

I think your talking guff about morality because I bet when we played Leon best having knowingly refused to pay his transfer fee you wouldn't have cared less. Would you?

Irrelevant, as I was speaking in general terms summarising the views expressed on this forum, ie many take a Moral stance, others take a practical, it won't work, stance.
Of course, you can try to confuse the issue by referring to specific cases in which fan x or fan z supported an "immoral" stance.
All that does is obscure the issue. You asked why some take a stance with which you disagree, I gave an answer. So, you may disagree, or think it is inconsistent, but there it is.

 

[bigfatronssba]

Grendel, do you think it was morally wrong for Ray Ranson to sell Gary Borrowdale for decent money despite knowing he was rubbish?

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Grendel, this has been explained before.
Some people object on moral grounds to defaulting on a legal debt.
Other people object because they don't see how it can work without lots of trouble.
You disagree, presumably because you think it is moral to break an "unfair" rental agreement AND you think the club can win this fight without killing the club they are custodians of.
Most, I think, disagree with you.
Time will tell.

Ironically, those same people who take the moral high ground, namely CJParker, are rather happy to go protest at Fisher's kids' primary school.

Also, I bet those same people would not object to such unethical practices if it were, say PH4/Byng Far East investors took such measures - in fact I'd guarantee it! Therefore, I conclude, that this support of ACL is all but a protest against SISU, fine, but by doing so, people are missing the point, the club is unsustainable with or without SISU, again, why do you think Alki David, far richer than PH4 and maybe these Asian investors, looked at our finances and lost interest in investing in CCFC and even said "After looking through the finances and seeing the numbers, the club is falling apart" continuing "Good luck to whoever takes them on. I am certainly not getting involved" - we were left with a hedge-fund because they're the risk takers in capitalism, and any sane individual would touch us with a barge-pole, even a billionaire who probably had the money to plug any hole and do 'x, y and z' until we got to the prem thus sorting ourselves out - I am of the opinion that SISU haven't made us necessarily worse off, than we would be without them, but have only succeeded in stagnating the club (the years before inevitable relegation IMO) and continuing the rapid decline of our club. There's a reason Alki David didn't get involved, it was clear we were fucked.

You can't say we weren't warned.

http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/alki-david-pulls-out-coventry-3103754

Interesting reaction to Alki David: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A30071846

 

[Grendel]

Grendel, do you think it was morally wrong for Ray Ranson to sell Gary Borrowdale for decent money despite knowing he was rubbish?

No it was great business. There was a buyer and a seller. I do anticipate the response to the answer of this curious question by the way.

 

[Grendel]

OK, so please explain how this would have been different if the club owned the Ricoh over then last few years?

Losses would be £55m rather than £70m?

What a success that would be!

Why wouldn't it be a success? Debt is irrelevant. Revenue is king.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

OK, so please explain how this would have been different if the club owned the Ricoh over then last few years?

Losses would be £55m rather than £70m?

What a success that would be!

Unfair, we've only had 60m debt dumped on us by SISU because that's there chance to cut their losses, transferring debt from other ventures to CCFC, but at stages, we have had no, or manageable debt.

If you're sustainable, you can have as much debt as you like because people know you can pay your debts. Again, that's why your Man U's, Chelsea's and Madrid's don't go into administration.

 

[bigfatronssba]

<p>

No it was great business. There was a buyer and a seller. I do anticipate the response to the answer of this curious question by the way.

The response being if someone is stupid enough to pay over the odds for something who is at fault?

 

[bigfatronssba]

<p>

Why wouldn't it be a success? Debt is irrelevant. Revenue is king.

Yes debt is irrelevant if it can be serviced. However the debt has grown year on year, and we all know the rent isn't the only reason.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

<p>

Yes debt is irrelevant if it can be serviced. However the debt has grown year on year, and we all know the rent isn't the only reason.

No one is saying it's all about rent, it isn't, but it's certainly important.

 

[bigfatronssba]

<p>

No one is saying it's all about rent, it isn't, but it's certainly important.

Important yes, but no the one and only problem.

If you believed Tim Fisher we would be in the Champions League by now if it wasn't for the stadium issue.

Its an issue stirred up by sisu to try and deflect criticism of their own failings.

 

[Grendel]

<p>

The response being if someone is stupid enough to pay over the odds for something who is at fault?

Yes it was predictable. However it is mystifying. If you out the club first and support the club you should surely be outraged at the fact that we have been royally ripped off. Did he go to QPR? What do you think the fans said? "What did we pay anything for that twat for?" Or "fair play Coventry we paid over the odds but that us our fault?"

 

[bigfatronssba]

<p>

Yes it was predictable. However it is mystifying. If you out the club first and support the club you should surely be outraged at the fact that we have been royally ripped off. Did he go to QPR? What do you think the fans said? &quot;What did we pay anything for that twat for?&quot; Or &quot;fair play Coventry we paid over the odds but that us our fault?&quot;

I imagine the Qpr fans anger was directed at their own club.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

<p>

Important yes, but no the one and only problem.

If you believed Tim Fisher we would be in the Champions League by now if it wasn't for the stadium issue.

Its an issue stirred up by sisu to try and deflect criticism of their own failings.

No it is critical and I don't think it should be underestimated. We paid £1.3m p/a in rent over 7 years, that's 9.1m in rent alone, now, add the missed money in revenues to it, take the 100k, about 700k, but, this ranges from 100-300k p/a because we had higher attendances when we first moved in, moving to the RICOH has cost us, without any building costs, c. £10m over the 7 years we paid rent, thats not including the debt we'll pay ACL and the revenue we've missed out on this season - and people wonder why we've had to sell talent like Fox, Dann and Best!? That clearly isn't sustainable whether you like it or not. If we were at HR, that's money we could spend elsewhere (I grant that some this 10m would have to go on maintaining HR etc.)

Worst of all, not one season since we've left HR, we've had an attendance that matches the max capacity of HR! Total waste of time and money!

 

[valiant15]

ZzzZzzzzzzzzz.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

ZzzZzzzzzzzzz.

Do you need to turn on sticky keys?

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

<p>

I imagine the Qpr fans anger was directed at their own club.

No, they'd say 'why the fuck did we pay anything for him' - just like us about Eastwood!

 

[Jim]

No it is critical and I don't think it should be underestimated. We paid £1.3m p/a in rent over 7 years, that's 9.1m in rent alone, now, add the missed money in revenues to it, take the 100k, about 700k, but, this ranges from 100-300k p/a because we had higher attendances when we first moved in, moving to the RICOH has cost us, without any building costs, c. £10m over the 7 years we paid rent, thats not including the debt we'll pay ACL and the revenue we've missed out on this season - and people wonder why we've had to sell talent like Fox, Dann and Best!? That clearly isn't sustainable whether you like it or not. If we were at HR, that's money we could spend elsewhere (I grant that some this 10m would have to go on maintaining HR etc.)

Worst of all, not one season since we've left HR, we've had an attendance that matches the max capacity of HR! Total waste of time and money!

9.1m in rent - now add back seven seasons at £400k a season as we would either be paying rent or interest on a mortgage, please cost of leasing the freehold. So 2.8m back makes a saving of £6.3m which is generous. Over the last seven seasons we've lost an average of £5m a season. Equates to £35m loss.

£6.3m out £35m suggests that there are far worse problems than the rent to worry about.

To be a success the club needs to engage with the fans, and have a healthy policy of recruitment, retention of talent AND also to be able to sell on portions of that talent to higher leagues to plug the funding gap.

Until we return to the premiership we will have to sell to get the books to balance. You cannot just have an owner throwing cash into the club. Doesn't work like that anymore. This is where making sure the academy is top notch and ensuring that we retain talented youngsters for a least a couple of seasons after breaking into senior squad.

SISU have now alienated the fans so much that it will be impossible for them to get a working strategy. It just doesn't work without your key stakeholders in board. I really hope that thy actually recognise this, accept an offer for the club and walk away.

 

[Steve.B50]

And why we need an Academy

 

[James Smith]

Does anyone know when we first approached ACL over the rent? Was it before or after we were relegated, was it before or after the rent boycott? We should have approached and negotiated with ACL before we were relegated letting them know that the rent was too high for the gates we were getting. Then when we were relegated ACL may well have been sympathetic to the fact that our gates would probably be lower in this league and agreed to better terms (that they could afford to offer).

This is of course all supposition but given ACL didn't kick us out (and haven't yet) or threaten Admin until we threatened to liquidate Ltd it seems reasonable. Oh and Tim did threaten to liquidate us by saying

ACL have been robust in their external statements that they are not in negotiations with us anymore and that negotiations have stopped," Fisher said. "We are at a tipping point and insolvent liquidation cannot be reasonably avoided."They need to re-enter negotiations pronto or we file. We'll have no option because there would not be reasonable probability of avoiding insolvency liquidation. We entered the twilight zone on the 22 February [when ACL said negotiations were off] and the twilight zone will become the dead of night very soon unless negotiations are re-entered. We have to show our lawyers that negotiations are ongoing."

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/mar/11/coventry-city-administration-ricoh-arena 11 March 2013

and has stated on CWR that he doesn't bluff or bluster. So therefore ACL had to take him at his word and the directors had to take steps to protect the business.

Rent negotiations are a part of normal business, rent boycotts are not. If you don't tell someone that something is wrong then how do they know?

So does anyone know when we first approached ACL over the rent?

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

And why we need an Academy

Most important part of any club, although it's particularly neglecting in the English top tier. Barcelona had 6-7 (maybe more?) academy players in the CL winning lineups.

 

[The Penguin]

Most important part of any club, although it's particularly neglecting in the English top tier. Barcelona had 6-7 (maybe more?) academy players in the CL winning lineups.

Easier to let everyone else do the work and poach their talent. Even better if they aren't British as you won't pay ridiculously overinflated prices.

Completely agree though, academies are wonderful for clubs like ours.

 

[simple_simon]

Most important part of any club, although it's particularly neglecting in the English top tier. Barcelona had 6-7 (maybe more?) academy players in the CL winning lineups.

And hence why we need to get rid of SISU, under them we have no ACademy, only the possibility of a School of excellence. They do not care about our football future or our supporters future, for example how do JSBs get to games outside Coventry? They will no longer go and end up following the big Premier clubs, without such youngsters even the fans have no future. What about tickets for schools, are teachers going to organise coaches to take youngsters to games rather than just meet them(& parents) at ground.
We are dead if not in the City, even for one year.