It's been a long battle and the collateral losses are unbelievable.
It started with the mismanagement that lead to the club selling Highfield Road and then all stakes in the Ricoh Areana even before a ball was kicked in our state of the art stadium. From that point it was ever really going to one way route to the bottom. With not enough income to cover the costs of the ambition to get back 'where we belong' the club has been losing money each and every year for too many years. Different managements have tried different strategies, but nothing has really worked out. The financial crisis was like a turbo accelerating the drive downhill.
The last battle has been especially exhausting and caused incredible damage (we all know the score) and I can't help using a metaphor: This must be what Coventry looked like in 1945. I am NOT trying to invoke Goodwins law already, but to hint there may be a brighter future ahead.
To end the downward spiral the club need to sit in its own stadium again. The club need to profit from each and every penny being spend by customers in the compound. And the final battle was all about making sure this could happen. From the club owners perspective it was all about taking over ACL or break the lease that bound the club as tenants for the next 40+ years. From the stadium owners perspective it was all about making sure the current club owners didn't take over ACL and make sure the club was taken over by the Hoffman/Elliott/Haskel consortium.
Now that battle is over the club owners achieved one victory: The lease is broken and the club is now in a position to move from tenants to owners of the stadium they play in. Either by building a new or taking over ACL (which isn't actually owning the stadium per se, but you know what I mean). On the other hand ACL lost their main tenants, the main purpose for the stadium, and their stakeholders like Compass, the Casino and all other businesses that profitted from the customers the club brought to them have lost a significant future income.
In the coming months we will most likely see and hear very little from the club owners - as usual.
But at the stadium side I expect quite a lot of activity. The stadium owners can surely not be happy with the outcome of this last battle with the club. They backed ACL's plan to replace sisu with new owners ... Hoffman/Elliott/Haskel the most promising prospects. So they took over the mortgage from YB - and in return got an invitation to visit the High Court to fight the legallity. They may have 'won' the first round there, but there may be more to come. And it doesn't look good when a council is summoned to a high court ... when there's smoke, there's bound to be fire somewhere.
The council also backed ACL in pushing the club into administration, losing all hope of promotion last term. Then they backed ACL when they refused to let the club exit administration causing the club to start the new season with a 10 point handicap ensuring a challeging new season.
All for nothing. sisu are still club owners.
So expect new ACL management in the not too far future. The first sign is CCc members wanting to look into the long term 'sustainabillity' of ACL. But in fact, that is simply the first step to remove the management. The ball is rolling.
And as the club continue to play in Northampton and when there are no more ACL vs Otium skirmishes the council need to back, I will expect a few council members will start to look into the ownership structure of ACL. We already know Higgs want out ... I can imagine the CCc wanting out too. ACL have become a political liability.
I hope the final peace treaty will include ACL being sold to Otium or SBS&L. This will effectively end the downward spiral and bring the team back to the city.
But don't take too long ... if the Council fail to come to terms with sisu, a new stadium will be build and the Ricoh may end as a financial libility as well as a political fiasco.
It started with the mismanagement that lead to the club selling Highfield Road and then all stakes in the Ricoh Areana even before a ball was kicked in our state of the art stadium. From that point it was ever really going to one way route to the bottom. With not enough income to cover the costs of the ambition to get back 'where we belong' the club has been losing money each and every year for too many years. Different managements have tried different strategies, but nothing has really worked out. The financial crisis was like a turbo accelerating the drive downhill.
The last battle has been especially exhausting and caused incredible damage (we all know the score) and I can't help using a metaphor: This must be what Coventry looked like in 1945. I am NOT trying to invoke Goodwins law already, but to hint there may be a brighter future ahead.
To end the downward spiral the club need to sit in its own stadium again. The club need to profit from each and every penny being spend by customers in the compound. And the final battle was all about making sure this could happen. From the club owners perspective it was all about taking over ACL or break the lease that bound the club as tenants for the next 40+ years. From the stadium owners perspective it was all about making sure the current club owners didn't take over ACL and make sure the club was taken over by the Hoffman/Elliott/Haskel consortium.
Now that battle is over the club owners achieved one victory: The lease is broken and the club is now in a position to move from tenants to owners of the stadium they play in. Either by building a new or taking over ACL (which isn't actually owning the stadium per se, but you know what I mean). On the other hand ACL lost their main tenants, the main purpose for the stadium, and their stakeholders like Compass, the Casino and all other businesses that profitted from the customers the club brought to them have lost a significant future income.
In the coming months we will most likely see and hear very little from the club owners - as usual.
But at the stadium side I expect quite a lot of activity. The stadium owners can surely not be happy with the outcome of this last battle with the club. They backed ACL's plan to replace sisu with new owners ... Hoffman/Elliott/Haskel the most promising prospects. So they took over the mortgage from YB - and in return got an invitation to visit the High Court to fight the legallity. They may have 'won' the first round there, but there may be more to come. And it doesn't look good when a council is summoned to a high court ... when there's smoke, there's bound to be fire somewhere.
The council also backed ACL in pushing the club into administration, losing all hope of promotion last term. Then they backed ACL when they refused to let the club exit administration causing the club to start the new season with a 10 point handicap ensuring a challeging new season.
All for nothing. sisu are still club owners.
So expect new ACL management in the not too far future. The first sign is CCc members wanting to look into the long term 'sustainabillity' of ACL. But in fact, that is simply the first step to remove the management. The ball is rolling.
And as the club continue to play in Northampton and when there are no more ACL vs Otium skirmishes the council need to back, I will expect a few council members will start to look into the ownership structure of ACL. We already know Higgs want out ... I can imagine the CCc wanting out too. ACL have become a political liability.
I hope the final peace treaty will include ACL being sold to Otium or SBS&L. This will effectively end the downward spiral and bring the team back to the city.
But don't take too long ... if the Council fail to come to terms with sisu, a new stadium will be build and the Ricoh may end as a financial libility as well as a political fiasco.