Coventry observer's open letter to Mr Duggins. Apologies if already posted.
OUR OPEN QUESTIONS TO GEORGE DUGGINS, COVENTRY CITY COUNCIL LEADER…
Why did you not personally attend the crucial meeting yesterday in Westminster aimed at keeping Coventry City Football Club in Coventry, instead sending the council’s solicitor Julie Newman to take notes when all other parties in the Ricoh Arena dispute sent their leading decision makers? Does this display leadership of the city by you?
This, coupled with your statement yesterday afternoon, has been widely understood by many as an indication that you have absolutely no intention as a local authority of taking any meaningful part in the process involving the secretary of state Jeremy Wright MP, in which he yesterday publicly urged all parties to ‘work together urgently’ to keep Coventry City in Coventry for next season. Is this the case? If so, please explain why. If the council IS to take part in the ongoing process, please make that clear now in the public interest.
Do you accept as a politician that very few multi-party disputes in history, including legal ones, have ever been resolved by one side caving in after being backed into a corner, and that in all walks of life resolutions require a negotiated settlement, with give and take on all sides, AFTER mediation or discussions?
Do you personally understand that the Coventry public and fans – even the anti-Sisu Sky Blue Trust representative on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire on Wednesday evening – want all sides to discuss the matter urgently and resolve it so that Coventry City stay in Coventry after this season? You are leader of the council that is the Ricoh Arena’s freehold owner and which has powers and influence across the city.
Do you understand that you personally with your actions will be held personally responsible alongside representatives from Sisu, Wasps and others if Coventry City is forced out of Coventry? You having taken part in collapsed talks in 2012 as then council deputy leader alongside then leader John Mutton about joint ownership of the Ricoh Arena with Coventry City.
Do you understand that the clearly divisive decision you personally supported alongside colleagues to sell the Ricoh Arena to London Wasps Holdings Limited in 2014 on a 250-year lease not offered to Coventry City (whatever bargaining positions were expressed at various times) continues to greatly financially disadvantage the club over ownership and revenues, and that is why it is still being legally contested?
Do you personally want, as some failed campaigners seem to ‘talk up’, a phoenix club emerging at the Ricoh Arena stadium playing non-league football, with Coventry City under Sisu and Mark Robins frozen out of the city and distressed by many fans’ non-attendance at a groundshare elsewhere, as a high risk strategy for potentially ousting Sisu? If not, please state so categorically now that you do not want this even more divisive outcome. Please also categorically state that you understand, as most fans and the public clearly do, that this would be a disaster for our historic football club.
Are you aware that a leaked council email we published in 2016 proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the council has indeed sought to block Coventry City’s attempts to have a new stadium – in this case the previous joint exploration between CCFC and Coventry rugby club of a groundshare at a greatly expanded Butts Park Arena? The email stated the council would block all professional football played at such a development as the council-supported Ricoh project needed to be protected.
Finally, Wasps will alongside Coventry City Council be attending the MIPIM international property conference in Cannes, France this year to showcase the city’s regeneration, with Coventry being European City of Sport 2019. Were Coventry City Football Club ever invited by the council for the event?
