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Sisu boss Joy Seppala rejects council offer to play at Ricoh Arena rent-free2 Dec 2013 18:35Coventry City turn down rent proposal from council leader Ann Lucas as club pursues further talks on stadium ownership
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Ricoh Arena, Coventry
Sisu boss Joy Seppala turned down a deal which could have brought the Sky Blues back to the Ricoh – rent-free for the rest of the season.
The offer was made by council leader Ann Lucas during talks with Sisu boss Seppala.
It is understood the proposal could have seen the Sky Blues play rent free until the end of this season – and £100,000 for each of the next two seasons if they remained in Division One.
But Coventry City turned down the offer floated during talks last month.
The club complains the proposal failed to offer the loss-making club any vital stadium revenues, and would still have seen them paying other matchday costs totalling £320,000 a year.
The plan was presented as an alternative to Sisu/Otium playing Coventry City’s ‘home’ matches at Northampton for three to five years, while building a new stadium in Warwickshire.
It is understood the club pays above £150,000 a year to play at Northampton’s Sixfields ground, where attendances of less than 2,000 compare with last season’s 10,000 Ricoh gates, adding to the club’s financial losses.
The latest rent proposal was revealed in a Guardian newspaper report.
In the summer ACL had made a rent offer of £400,000 via administrator Paul Appleton, down from the £1.3million rent the club had partly stopped paying, complaining it was extortionate.
Mark Labovitch, Otium’s non-executive director, said: “We clearly understood from Ann’s statement on October 30 that she was prepared to discuss ownership. We were surprised when that turned out not to be the case.
“We were equally surprised at the way ACL directors, the council executives Martin Reeves and Chris West, did not communicate this change of heart to us in a direct and straightforward way, but did so instead with off-record whispers on a fans’ podcast, the Nii Lamptey show.
“We have made it clear that no club can have a viable financial future unless it owns its own stadium.
“There is no prospect of us returning to the former landlord/tenant relationship with ACL, a company which bled the club dry for many years over two generations of owners, and wilfully sought to damage the club with actions which led to needless points deductions over the last two seasons.
“Such inexplicable actions have severely damaged our promotion chances. It is a credit to Steven Pressley and the players that so much of the damage caused by ACL has been made good.
“Joy’s door is open to Ann for further discussions. But we would have to be clear this time that it would be a discussion about stadium ownership.”
“In the absence of a clear commitment to discuss ownership, we are pressing ahead with the plans for our new stadium on the outskirts of Coventry.”
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</body>
Sisu boss Joy Seppala turned down a deal which could have brought the Sky Blues back to the Ricoh – rent-free for the rest of the season.
The offer was made by council leader Ann Lucas during talks with Sisu boss Seppala.
It is understood the proposal could have seen the Sky Blues play rent free until the end of this season – and £100,000 for each of the next two seasons if they remained in Division One.
But Coventry City turned down the offer floated during talks last month.
The club complains the proposal failed to offer the loss-making club any vital stadium revenues, and would still have seen them paying other matchday costs totalling £320,000 a year.
The plan was presented as an alternative to Sisu/Otium playing Coventry City’s ‘home’ matches at Northampton for three to five years, while building a new stadium in Warwickshire.
It is understood the club pays above £150,000 a year to play at Northampton’s Sixfields ground, where attendances of less than 2,000 compare with last season’s 10,000 Ricoh gates, adding to the club’s financial losses.
The latest rent proposal was revealed in a Guardian newspaper report.
In the summer ACL had made a rent offer of £400,000 via administrator Paul Appleton, down from the £1.3million rent the club had partly stopped paying, complaining it was extortionate.
Mark Labovitch, Otium’s non-executive director, said: “We clearly understood from Ann’s statement on October 30 that she was prepared to discuss ownership. We were surprised when that turned out not to be the case.
“We were equally surprised at the way ACL directors, the council executives Martin Reeves and Chris West, did not communicate this change of heart to us in a direct and straightforward way, but did so instead with off-record whispers on a fans’ podcast, the Nii Lamptey show.
“We have made it clear that no club can have a viable financial future unless it owns its own stadium.
“There is no prospect of us returning to the former landlord/tenant relationship with ACL, a company which bled the club dry for many years over two generations of owners, and wilfully sought to damage the club with actions which led to needless points deductions over the last two seasons.
“Such inexplicable actions have severely damaged our promotion chances. It is a credit to Steven Pressley and the players that so much of the damage caused by ACL has been made good.
“Joy’s door is open to Ann for further discussions. But we would have to be clear this time that it would be a discussion about stadium ownership.”
“In the absence of a clear commitment to discuss ownership, we are pressing ahead with the plans for our new stadium on the outskirts of Coventry.”
