We are not listened too.
All we can do is show SISU we do not support them by not going to home matches.
FL should say Northampton is not viable due to fans not able to go for whatever reasoning. Probably backed up by SISU not progressing the stadium as they said they would.
Drop the NOPM conversations as fans will not go now regardless of this, solely on principle or simply unable too. May be construed FL as scaring people from attending when it's not.
Clarity required from ACL on what they have offered CCFC in the hope that a peppercorn rent has actually been turned down.
There is a problem as I understand it in that SISU are not talking to ACL, they've "moved on, that ship has sailed, the eagle has become a turkey etc.". Now if you believe the ACL statement about what Joy allegedly said then we won't be back until SISU own the Ricoh at her price. Now we don't know that what ACL said is true and it might be that the "ownership" she talked about was of ACL not the freehold. However either way the price that she quoted must have been so low that it wasn't worth much consideration. CCFC then released a statement through the club website on the 5th of August and said that they could answer every point ACL made, had nothing to hide and welcomed an investigation into asset tranfers. Haven't yet seen those points being answered though and indeed the leaks of documents have sort of undermined their statement about transfer of assets.
Tim promised me and all the supporters of our club a new stadium much earlier in the year, he said it would be financed by selling the land around the stadium to other firms to build on (like the Ricoh was). CCFC reiterated this claim that they were developing plans to build "
our own stadium in the Coventry area" in their statement on August 5th. Should we read anything into that statement as it appears, in conjunction with the
"and should own its stadium" comment attributed to Joy, to say that the club would own the new stadium. Sadly I'd have to say probably not in my opinion as Tim was a bit vague when asked that question at the Forums, however we would still be getting all the matchday revenues which is a good thing under FFP.
Now it has subsequently emerged that they have done precisely nothing in the planning side of this to get the new stadium built. That means that there is a good chance they are still banking on being able to return to the Ricoh in the near future. If ACL are convinced that we've moved on then Tim needs to step things up a gear regarding the new stadium because we won't have much support left if we're at Sixfields for the full five years.
Despite there being a serious breakdown of trust between the two parties, If SISU wanted to be back at the Ricoh they could probably do so very easily, they could just make a sensible offer to ACL. Not saying it would be accepted but at the same time it might help build bridges. However SISU appear to be playing our tactic of NOPM - to ACL, so any rent deal would break that and not help distress ACL further. The only way that SISU can actively hurt ACL now is by legal means, appealing the JR application challenging the original rent deal etc.
There's obviously a problem here in that the council might be willing to do a deal for either ACL or the freehold but they obviously need a reasonable price. SISU may have offered a reasonable price but I wouldn't put money on it and that may well be where the sticking point is. If SISU are still after the Ricoh on the cheap then they could be holding us back from a return to the Ricoh and thus Coventry if they don't want to give ACL anymore money. Keeping us at Sixfields for five years whilst they pick up the tab isn't a very financially prudent move for SISU if they or possibly their investors are picking up the bill.
ACL on the other hand are not actively seeking out the club and this could be because they're taking Tim at his word and as PWKH posted "they've moved on". Also whilst they could probably call Tim up and say "why don't you come back?" by doing that they could leave themselves open to a counter claim of customer poaching from NTFC. I wonder if ACL did make an offer of say £400k and their share of F&B revenues if SISU would take it or whether the NOPM to ACL would continue. I too would like to know the full terms of all the offers made by ACL but I suspect that there's no chance of that happening, especially whilst the JR application appeal is still hanging over them. The worry for me is that it's obvious we're going to be waiting a long time for a new stadium to be built, if there aren't any planning applications in yet. Thus If we've genuinely "moved on" as all the statements say, why haven't we got further along in the preparations for this new stadium and whilst it is lovely to hear that Tim has been looking for badger droppings I'd rather see some plans of our new home.
