how long do you think ccfc will be financially viable for otium/sisu? (37 Viewers)

[Godiva]

but even if that is true it still makes more commercial sense. it takes the pressure of shitsu so they don't have to buy the 1st scrap of land they can and build a half thought out football stadium. they get time to find and purchase the best bit of land, get the finances sorted, come up with the optimum stadium design and then don't end up having to overspend because the build project gets behind after 2 frosty nights in January and a drought of 2 sunny days in may when they need to double the work force overnight as happened with the new Wembley stadium. they would actually get the chance to do some forward planning (something they don't seem to do) and make the right decisions (again something they don't seem to do)

Can I just say that I have no knowledge of all the details of what have been offered - plus I am not an Excell Monkey who can put every income and cost in a spreadsheet and make advanced simulations and project if one solution is financially better than the other. There are surely other factors than pure numbers - who are sisu dealing with, how are fans responding, how does sisu make their money from all of this, what will ensure their safest exit ... plenty of factors.

But in the end I maintain ... as a fan of the club ... the most important issue to sort is getting the club and stadium under the same umbrella. Be it ACL or The White Elephant Stadium I actually don't care as long as it happens. Before it happens I can't see sisu walk away.

 

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[skybluetony176]

But in the end I maintain ... as a fan of the club ... the most important issue to sort is getting the club and stadium under the same umbrella. Be it ACL or The White Elephant Stadium I actually don't care as long as it happens.

i whole heartedly agree with you on this statement. i guess we just have a different opinion on the best way for this to happen.

 

[Jack Griffin]

Look on the bright side. I would think that they only have to sell an extra 8 pies to make up for each ticket not sold since our move. If our gates are going to be 10,000 lower they will only have to sell an extra 80, 000 pies between the 2, 000 going to the games to make up for the losses.

I think this comment merits an illustration

 

[jimmyhill]

Can I just say that I have no knowledge of all the details of what have been offered - plus I am not an Excell Monkey.

This excell monkey...

http://www.oldwax.com/jpg2/monkey.jpg

 

[James Smith]

Most big businesses that have gone under in the last few years have because they couldn't afford the rent on their premises.

Generally go into admin on quarterly rent due day.

I hate to break it to you but we haven't been a big business in footballing terms for a number of years now. SISU have just worsened the situation and I'd guess we're getting seen as a smaller club as each season goes by.

 

[James Smith]

i don't disagree that moving back to the ricoh either owning the ground or acl would be the best situation. what i cant accept is that moving the club to sixfields against the wishes of the fans is in the best interest of the club economically or for any other reason. especially when their was an offer on the table for 10years rent at a sensible level that wouldn't slash gate revenue by 80% not to mention merchandise sales etc, who knows they might even have income from shirt sponsorship and all shitsu had to do was drop a judicial review that they have no chance of winning yet still appeal, presumably because they have ran out of ideas. there is just no financial sense in the move to the sixfields.

lets assume that shitsu are serious about building a new ground on the out skirts of Coventry, lets go further and say that it will be more suited to our best crowds from the highfield road era and has a great atmosphere. i think there are few fans who wouldn't accept that and possibly more than you think that think acl and ccc had it coming. but the reality is that this process is going to take a lot longer than the 3-5years fishface says it is going to take. 1st they have to find some land and buy it, try buying a house and see how long that whole process takes and that's on a much smaller scale and an everyday event. you then have to apply for planning permission, the 1st stage of which is outline application. ie you ask the local authority if you can build a football stadium on said piece of land with a capacity of say 18,000. this is not going to be like building a new kitchen on the side of your house this is going to be a long drawn out process with public consultation and possibly shitsu's favourite hobby, litigation. if out line approval is then given you need to draw up exact plans for detailed application. again further public consultation, nimby A wants landscaping adding so it doesn't spoil his view, nimby B wants the access moving as he wont be able to get to the tip on a Saturday afternoon with his hedge clippings. this is going to mean several re-designs and then eventually detailed application is accepted and you then go to tender for the building of said stadium. again a long drawn out process, specs have to be written for everything from the finish on fishfaces office to light fittings around the ground. so with my laymans understanding its clear to me that 3-5years is ambitious at best or pie in the sky at worse, 10years is more likely. so now moving to sixfields makes no commercial sense either.

so it begs the question why move in the 1st place when the best option is to accept the 10year rent deal.

either shitsu are the most incompetent football club management team since peter risdale (who has financial links to ray ranson and has finally been banned from running a football club) and his buddies, or they have another agenda other than running an efficient and successful football club.

either way who is going to be saddled with the debt of building the proposed new ground (lets call it never never land) CCFC and i would argue that buying the ricoh will be a lot cheaper and have a bigger revenue stream, this is why we need rid of shitsu, so this can happen.

I prefer the White Elephant as a name but each to their own I suppose.

 

[James Smith]

Tony, let's boil your post down to the question I have put in bold/italics. And I will include shmmeee's post as it kind of ask the same.

To who was it the best option and in what time frame?
If we agree that either owning ACL or owning its own stadium is the best long term scenario for the club, then that should be the starting point when asking how, why, who, when and how much.
As CCc and Higgs has made it very clear that ACL is not becoming an assets under sisu ownership, there's only one way to look and plan for - building a new stadium and mover there as soon as possible.
If ACL are only offering a 10 year lease on low rent (and btw that exclude match day cost and does not include any access to income streams like F/B etc) then accepting sisu will be locked down to an undesireable situation for 5 or 6 years longer than going to Northampton while building.
That deal setup is designed to relieve the financial set back for ACL, Compass and all businesses in and around the Ricoh and secure them 10 years of income.

The problem is ACL are not allowed to offer a sensible deal of a three year lease as the minimum lease accepted by the FL is 10 year. Or so I am told by OSB.
If this is true, then that fact alone will make sure ccfc will not ever play at the Ricoh (unless ACL are sold to ccfc).

So why didn't SISU just sign up to the ten year job and then just bugger off when the White Elephant is done? It's not like they haven't done something similar before. Also I think their timeframe is slightly out given the likely planning challenges, but I might be wrong nobody may object and they get everything waved through in double quick time. It could take ten years though if they actually intend to build it at all.

 

[James Smith]

Actually I don't know that.
If they can't have ACL, then their next best move surely is building a new stadium.

- It won't require sisu to come up with another £20m (if that's the cost), as much would be financed by mortgages and selling leases to businesses in and around the stadium.
- It would increase their chance of a sell-on profit as the club and stadium would have amuch higher value than the club alone today.
- Sisu are paid fee's by the investors (funds) and part of the payment is an annual amount based on the asset value they manage. Increase the asset value by £20m and sisu's yearly paycheck is increased by up to £1m.

oh and of course - increasing the revenue will allow for a higher wage cap (FFP) and increase the chances of promotion (which would increase the value of the assets sisu are managing and increase their paycheck even more).

Well as I've said before I'll be at the head of the queue to buy tickets for the White Elephant Stadium. I might even spring for a box and bring a few mates along. I'll buy food, merchandise, programmes etc. I'm that sure it won't happen.

 

[Noggin]

I actually asked a month ago or so if sisu couldn't just sign a 10 year lease and then pay up the remainder of the lease when the new stadium was finished, but I was told ACL wouldn't allow it and make sure the club was contractual bound to play at the Ricoh for all 10 years. I believed that and this is why I abandoned supporting the idea of staying while building.

Who says ACL wouldn't allow it? I don't think they are in any position to turn down a 400k year 10 year deal even if they did believe that ccfc might stop playing there half way through and continue paying the rent. Honestly though it would be very easy to fix the contract to make acl happy with that. 10 year deal - 400k per year, if ccfc play their home games somewhere other than the Ricoh for over 1 month the rest of the 10 years is immediately owed but payable in yearly instalments of 400k, ccfc no longer have the right to play there and acl are free to find an alternative tenant. That protects acl and is an order of magnitude better for ccfc than their current plan and it lets them build a stadium if they are being honest about that.

 

[DazzleTommyDazzle]

Who says ACL wouldn't allow it? I don't think they are in any position to turn down a 400k year 10 year deal even if they did believe that ccfc might stop playing there half way through and continue paying the rent. Honestly though it would be very easy to fix the contract to make acl happy with that. 10 year deal - 400k per year, if ccfc play their home games somewhere other than the Ricoh for over 1 month the rest of the 10 years is immediately owed but payable in yearly instalments of 400k, ccfc no longer have the right to play there and acl are free to find an alternative tenant. That protects acl and is an order of magnitude better for ccfc than their current plan and it lets them build a stadium if they are being honest about that.

Beat me to it - my thoughts exactly.

 

[shmmeee]

Who says ACL wouldn't allow it? I don't think they are in any position to turn down a 400k year 10 year deal even if they did believe that ccfc might stop playing there half way through and continue paying the rent. Honestly though it would be very easy to fix the contract to make acl happy with that. 10 year deal - 400k per year, if ccfc play their home games somewhere other than the Ricoh for over 1 month the rest of the 10 years is immediately owed but payable in yearly instalments of 400k, ccfc no longer have the right to play there and acl are free to find an alternative tenant. That protects acl and is an order of magnitude better for ccfc than their current plan and it lets them build a stadium if they are being honest about that.

Not sure how ACL could stop it.

Besides, couldn't they just liquidate the company that had the lease?

 

[Grendel]

Morning - as usual we partly agree and partly disagree

Completely agree about the need for the club to live within its means, though (going over old ground) I thought that the way KD attempted to acieve this was brainless at best - let's cut the wage bill to such an extent that relegation is virtually inevitable, meaning that the revenue loss is a multiple of the cost savings :facepalm:

In a totally theoretical world, I can see sense in moving away / threatening to move from the Ricoh, in order to get a better deal. In the practical world, this is one of the best ever examples of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Moving to a 7,000 capacity stadium (soon I believe to have its capacity reduced for a year or so for building work), 35 miles away from your customer base is a move that makes one look back wistfully at the days when good old KD ran the club......

In the short term the move brings about serious financial pain (with or without NOPM), in the medium term there is a huge danger, as Otis frequently points out, that if/when the club returns to Coventry, its erstwhile customer base will have metaphorically moved on.

As for the ACL related issue - in my view, ACL made a (belatedly) significant move in cutting the rent by two thirds to £400k. If we are to believe the comments posted here by someone who claimed to have spoken to TF at half time on Saturday, the rent at Northampton is £170k. So £170k for a 7,000 capacity stadium (soon to be reduced to 5,500?), as against £400k for a 32,000 capacity stadium. Doesn't sound too ridiculous to me. ACL have also indicated willingness to agree to lower figures with the reported "£150k while in the third division offer".

Should this have been made direct to SISU? Yes in my opinion.

Should TF be picking up the phone to ACL and asking if that offer is available to him? Yes in my opinion.

In a logical world there must be sufficient common interest for a deal to be done.

My concern is that in a logical world we would never have moved to Sixfields - so who knows what will happen!

I am voting this the most annoying post of the year.

 

[Astute]

I am voting this the most annoying post of the year.

Why don't you try looking at your own? You would then have to agree that it don't even make the top 1,000 most annoying posts.

 

[skybluetony176]

I am voting this the most annoying post of the year.

that would still only make it the 10,584th most annoying post of all time.

 

[Grendel]

Why don't you try looking at your own? You would then have to agree that it don't even make the top 1,000 most annoying posts.

I'm voting for it as I can't find a single thing to contradict. It's an excellent summary.

 

[Noggin]

Not sure how ACL could stop it.

Besides, couldn't they just liquidate the company that had the lease?

Only way for ACL to stop it would be to have a penalty clause that said if ccfc build a new stadium and stop paying home games here then a charge of 5 mill becomes payable. But they arn't in the position to demand this and as I said there is an easy way to make the contract that works for everyone.

SISU could liquidate to break the lease unless the lease was in Otium and ACL would of course insist on it being there.

 

[longjohnskyblue]

Or is there any truth in the 'CCFC being used as a debt pit' theory???

It would explain why they are so desperate to keep hold of the club. There simply is no business case otherwise

 

[James Smith]

I am voting this the most annoying post of the year.

I'm disappointed that one of mine wasn't your first choice