"My apologies for troubling this group once more!
Returning to the relationship of Coventry City Council with Wasps, I have just received a another telephone call this morning from a Chartered
Surveyor colleague of mine, a rugby fan through and through, who is attending the annual international property event, MIPM, in Cannes. He asked me why, as Wasps are represented, as he put it " flying the flag with the City Council", aren't Coventry City
Football Club and Coventry Rugby Club equally represented?
When I made the obvious suggestion about the Ricoh row and ongoing litigation, he said that surely the Council, in the interest of the City as
a whole, should make best use of all of those companies that represent it, CCFC has
twice taken over 40,000 fans to Wembley in recent years and returned successfully. Coventry Rugby Club is equally resurgent.
I wasn't aware that Wasps were at MIPM so I looked at the Wasps' website and found the following statement made by Déirdre Fitzhugh, Director of Wasps Community Foundation:-
"There are a couple of truisms - people do business with people, and places have to make themselves easy to do business with. My experience of the Coventry and Warwickshire MIPIM Partnership tells me that we tick both
boxes."
It is an admirable statement but as my colleague said, why aren't Coventry City Football Club and Coventry Rugby Club involved, both have made a far greater contribution to the local community over a longer period than Wasps have or are ever likely to.
Coventry City Council's ambiguous action towards the owners of CCFC, which
Like it or not have saved this great football club from extinction, is difficult to understand to outsiders, as my potential Chinese investors
found some years ago. Coventry RFC has been at the heart of the sport in the City since 1874 and surely is worthy of support and promotion.
CCFC and CRFC appear to "tick the boxes" in bold type more emphatically than Wasps self-credit their organisation.
Or perhaps, as my Chartered Surveyor colleague said, the City Council has a far greater need to support a sporting organisation with heavy balance sheet debt, £55 millions at the last account, with the real potential for financial failure, and to protect it from collapse in the Coventry & Warwickshire LEP Area, than to support its other successful and debt free
sports clubs.
Food for thought?"