Times Today - SISU Indictment (5 Viewers)

[dadgad]

Yeah, excellent.
FA banged to rights

 

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[skybluetony176]

Doesn't that just sum up English football perfectly. We are a poor man's Newcastle.

 

[Sky Blues]

First the Guardian and now The Times. I'm inclined to put this upturn in national attention down to one group of people - the fans. By turning out in huge numbers in Milton Keynes for an away match it reminded the national newspapers that Coventry is not just another former top flight team losing support because of its league position but is a relatively well supported club and the fans are staying away from "home" matches for a reason.

 

[covspain]

"Coventry, seem not to care about the damage being done by their senseless decision to relocate to Northampton out of spite towards Coventry City Council, who own the Ricoh Arena.


Nobody at Coventry/SISU seems to worry about the long-term issues arising from the fact that a Sky Bet League One club, facing a battle to attract young supporters, has, out of bloody-mindedness, ended up playing its home matches in front of crowds of less than 2,000 and a 40-minute drive away in Northampton."

Oh dear this is very unbalanced and one sided isn't it. I wonder what Les Reid thinks about it. No kind words about Allam or the Glazers and nothing about how SISU have given us a great young team that could possibly be in the top 6 or 7 in League One if only we hadn't lost ten points! I wonder if SISU are now going to sue The Times. I only wish our local paper had the balls to criticise them in this way. In my opinion SISU have done nothing good, not one iota of a speck of anything positive has emerged from their ownership and you can't get much more one sided than that!

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Will the Trust publish a Link ? LOL

 

[bigfatronssba]

"Coventry, seem not to care about the damage being done by their senseless decision to relocate to Northampton out of spite towards Coventry City Council, who own the Ricoh Arena.


Nobody at Coventry/SISU seems to worry about the long-term issues arising from the fact that a Sky Bet League One club, facing a battle to attract young supporters, has, out of bloody-mindedness, ended up playing its home matches in front of crowds of less than 2,000 and a 40-minute drive away in Northampton."

Oh dear this is very unbalanced and one sided isn't it. I wonder what Les Reid thinks about it. No kind words about Allam or the Glazers and nothing about how SISU have given us a great young team that could possibly be in the top 6 or 7 in League One if only we hadn't lost ten points! I wonder if SISU are now going to sue The Times. I only wish our local paper had the balls to criticise them in this way. In my opinion SISU have done nothing good, not one iota of a speck of anything positive has emerged from their ownership and you can't get much more one sided than that!

Can someone tweet him this story and see if he thinks this is one sided?

 

[letsallsingtogether]

NO NO NO NO NO Stick it if it outside of our boundary.

For sure, we need to be in Coventry or the very worst within 1-2 miles of the city boundary,

 

[cofastreecity]

Another poignant article, there intelligent journalists out there, and only now are they flushing out the real colours of Sisu, owners who care nothing for Covenry or its supporters as their motive remains distress upset and spite

 

[ohitsaidwalker king power]

Another poignant article, there intelligent journalists out there, and only now are they flushing out the real colours of Sisu, owners who care nothing for Covenry or its supporters as their motive remains distress upset and spite

You missed acquisition

 

[Senior Vick from Alicante]

The more entrenched SISU become in litigation, as our benefactress said she would do to the council, the more likely the club will be franchised off. They will say that their position with the council has become untenable and the only way they can continue with the club is to move it some where else. The basic problem that is alluded to in the piece is about lack of proper football governance. Until the powers that be in Whitehall get off their over paid arses and bring in effective legislation to stop foreign ownership and bring in rules to vet potential owners of clubs nothing will change and bigger clubs than us will one day go to the wall. The football league and the F.A sit on their well paid laurels as long as the money keeps rolling in to pay for Wembley, are they bothered that a secretive hedge fund has committed a corporate kidnapping and are now effectively holding a legally elected government backed body to ransom? As for the mentions of Les Reid, if he wants a balanced view from all sides why doesn't he trot off to London again and interview Greg Dyke, we all know SISU are equitable with the facts even when their in the public domain but this is something he seems unaware of in his reporting, even the likes of CWR have proved that as recently as two weeks ago with Eakins interview of Labowitch.

 

[dadgad]

The more media comment like this the better IMO.

The FA and FL abdication of any guiding principles in all of this is highly significant.

In World Cup Year while making appeals for "unity" they are being shown up as hypocritical men of straw.

Moreover Sisu and their ilk are pure bile, beyond redemption.

NOPM

 

[CCFC PimpRail]

So Hull don't own their stadium either, and yet have still managed to rise to the prem without claiming they need every penny from pies & tea. (Im referring to before when their particular loon took over, having graduated from the Sisue school of ownership...).

 

[The Gentleman]

I think the piece by Oliver Kay is a very good article, not just because it tells the truth of our plight, but because it keeps it in the public domain and spotlight like it never really has before. If more journalists and alike keep this up, there is no way Sisu/Otium cover keep them all at bay and I believe they will start to stretch themselves too thin to keep deflecting and ultimately might start to back them into a corner where they have to move quickly because too much exposure in this light will not be good for their business or the people who trust them with their money.

 

[Grendel]

So Hull don't own their stadium either, and yet have still managed to rise to the prem without claiming they need every penny from pies & tea. (Im referring to before when their particular loon took over, having graduated from the Sisue school of ownership...).

Hull get the money from "pies and teas" -- they pay the council about £50,000 a year to rent the stadium and the council even pay to rent meeting space in their own stadium.

Nice try though.

 

[Grendel]

Hull get the money from "pies and teas" -- they pay the council about £50,000 a year to rent the stadium and the council even pay to rent meeting space in their own stadium.

Nice try though.

I apologise - It's £50 a year and 100% access to everything according to this -- read and weep

http://www.football.co.uk/hull_city/kc_stadium_contract_blunder__rss4446819.shtml

 

[Monners]

"Read and weep" - what a tit you are. Point scoring dullard

 

[James Smith]

Hull get the money from "pies and teas" -- they pay the council about £50,000 a year to rent the stadium and the council even pay to rent meeting space in their own stadium.

Nice try though.

Hull don't pay the council to rent the stadium though, the council leased the stadium for 50 years to a company called "Superstadium Management Company" (SMC) which is currently owned by the club's owner Mr Allam. The terms of the lease mean that the only revenue the council get from the stadium is a percentage of the profits from SMC.

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...m-fails-to-net-any-cash-for-council-1-4778376

Sadly since the stadium opened the profits have declined and at the time the Yorkshire Post article was written (27/07/12) it wasn't generating any profits hence the council received nothing. However it gets worse as the lease is apparently air tight and the council only made just shy of £50k since the stadium opened 10 years ago. You're correct to say, they'd been renting office space there and had paid over ten times the revenue they've received (circa £600k). :facepalm: They should have vacated the offices by now however as there was a break clause in the rental agreement.

Edit: I've just seen your second post.

 

[Spionkop]

The Times have reported, The Guardian have reported and, whatever I think about them usually, The Daily Mail have also reported on us and pointed out this awful situation. As a lot of posters have said, a hostage situation - in football terms.
Expose Sisu as much as possible. They represent everything that is wrong in life, not just football.

 

[RPHunt]

Hull don't pay the council to rent the stadium though, the council leased the stadium for 50 years to a company called "Superstadium Management Company" (SMC) which is currently owned by the club's owner Mr Allam. The terms of the lease mean that the only revenue the council get from the stadium is a percentage of the profits from SMC.

Hull City Council would dearly love to receive more rent for the KC Stadium, but they blundered when setting up the lease with the Stadium Management Company (SMC) and rather naively set the rent as a percentage of profit rather than turnover, as James said.

The various owners of the SMC have, unsurprisingly, failed to show a profit (or a very small one) ever since. David Conn of the Guardian did a good piece about the owner of the stadium before Allam and highlighted the various ways in which that owner contrived to make no profit - management fees, interest payments, loan repayments to related companies, etc. The current owner has claimed to be making a loss on the SMC despite a turnover of more than £4m.

The football club certainly doesn't play there for free - based on the £0.5m that the Rugby League club are charged to play 13 matches per season, supporters have calculated that the SMC is charging the Tigers over £1m per year. And the owner also charges the RL club £10k a year to display pictures of previous players!

Despite what looks like a pretty good deal, the current owner is demanding the freehold of the site on his terms and has threatened to move the club out of Hull if he doesn't get his way. This has annoyed most supporters almost as much as the proposed name change.

So it just goes to show that you don't have to be a greedy, rapacious bastard to own a football club, but if you are not, then you will stand out like a sore thumb.

 

[Hobo]

The Times have reported, The Guardian have reported and, whatever I think about them usually, The Daily Mail have also reported on us and pointed out this awful situation. As a lot of posters have said, a hostage situation - in football terms.
Expose Sisu as much as possible. They represent everything that is wrong in life, not just football.

Would just like to say hi. We need to celebrate a unity of at least two I thought I was reading my own post for a minute.

 

[SIR ERNIE]

First the Guardian and now The Times. I'm inclined to put this upturn in national attention down to one group of people - the fans. By turning out in huge numbers in Milton Keynes for an away match it reminded the national newspapers that Coventry is not just another former top flight team losing support because of its league position but is a relatively well supported club and the fans are staying away from "home" matches for a reason.

spot on. The fans are a powerful force, the strength of their voice was seriously underestimated when SISU chose to relocate CCFC. If only the Sixfields lemmings would recognise this and stay away, 'home' gates in the low hundreds would create an even starker contrast with away followings of 7,000.

 

[Covstu]

spot on. The fans are a powerful force, the strength of their voice was seriously underestimated when SISU chose to relocate CCFC. If only the Sixfields lemmings would recognise this and stay away, 'home' gates in the low hundreds would create an even starker contrast with away followings of 7,000.

i think it will drop further but the 'numbers' will always state around 1000 even in reality there isnt that number attending.

 

[italiahorse]

spot on. The fans are a powerful force, the strength of their voice was seriously underestimated when SISU chose to relocate CCFC. If only the Sixfields lemmings would recognise this and stay away, 'home' gates in the low hundreds would create an even starker contrast with away followings of 7,000.

It's unclear to me if they just want to support the team or whether they also support Sisu in their plan.
Just wonder if they don't support Sisu plan how they make their point?

Personally I see staying away from Sixfields as the only way to tell Sisu that I am not happy.
In addition I now see staying away from away games as telling Sisu I will not be there on a return in 5 years time.
Both may be futile, but what do i know.

 

[rightumpty]

I'd use a red hot poker and shove it up their a**e.

 

[skybluefred]

They probably could have done nothing then, but it's the structure that's meant clubs are now businesses, with the attendant consequences.

Something that various events have taken place because football fans are parochial, so we start changing it so home teams keep the gate, the premiership's formed, and owners load debt against a club in the form of investment because we as fans want our team to win.

But somewhere we have to remember it's about the competition as much as the winning, and the sport. The only way to get that moving is to start somewhere. Ultimately the league probably did do the only thing they could do with us... but we shouldn't have been in that position in the first place.

The trouble stems from the ludicrous law that allowed sisu to appoint their own administrator. The appointment should
be made by either the injured party ie ACL/CCC (rent owed) or the football league. I am quite sure we would now be looking at a different scenario if this had happened.

 

[skybluetony176]

The trouble stems from the ludicrous law that allowed sisu to appoint their own administrator. The appointment should
be made by either the injured party ie ACL/CCC (rent owed) or the football league. I am quite sure we would now be looking at a different scenario if this had happened.

they were the injured party. the clubs debt to sisu was higher than the debt to ACL strangely enough, hence they could call the administrator in and appoint them.

your right though, the law is an ass. you should not be able to put yourself in administration for a debt you owe yourself enabling you to control other debt not owed to you.

 

[Tank Top]

Another damning indictment of SISU as part of an article that highlights the failing of the game's administrators.

Oliver Kay Chief Football Correspondent
December 14 2013


Choose football. Choose a club. Choose a vanity purchase. Choose a leveraged buyout. Choose dragging a club into hundreds of millions of pounds of debt, running up huge interest payments every year, just to prop up your own investment.

Choose being dismissive, contemptuous and silent. Choose being open, desperate to please but hopelessly naive. Choose living the dream and then leaving behind a nightmare. Choose pumping in hundreds of millions of pounds and running the club as a dictatorship. Choose paying an £11 million dividend to one of your own companies. Choose sacking your manager, hiring a friend of a friend, thinking you know best and then showing you know nothing.


Choose alienating your fanbase by inflating ticket prices. Choose turning a proud old club into an advertising vehicle for a country, a downmarket sports shop or takeaway chicken. Choose selling the stadium’s name, changing the club’s name, changing the kit colours. Choose relocating to Milton Keynes or Northampton. Choose charging for newspaper interviews. Choose official integrated telecommunications partners in Benin, Bahrain and Bangladesh. Choose selling your soul to the highest bidder. Choose English football.


You get the picture. It is not just about Assem Allam’s attempts to turn Hull City into Hull Tigers or Vincent Tan’s unedifying rebranding of Cardiff City or Mike Ashley’s constant cheapening of Newcastle United or the Glazer family’s leeching of Manchester United or the atrocities inflicted on Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Coventry City, Portsmouth, York City and various other clubs in recent times.


No, the real issue here is the common theme that runs through all this: the unravelling of football’s rich tapestry by businessmen who correctly sense that the English game brings all manner of opportunities for self-aggrandisement and unregulated abuse of proud old institutions while the authorities shake their heads solemnly before shrugging and saying there is nothing they can do about it, guv.


Increasingly, it feels as if that particular horse has already bolted, that there is no use trying to shut the stable door now when Portsmouth have dropped three divisions or when Manchester United have spent more than £500  million in eight years to prop up the Glazer family’s ownership or when attendances at Blackburn have plummeted in three years under the calamitous ownership of Venky’s or when Coventry are playing to pitiful crowds in Northampton while the purpose-built Ricoh Arena sits empty because of a dispute between a hedge fund and Coventry City Council.


The authorities have proved spectacularly useless when it has come to stopping the various forms of corporate vandalism that have followed the diversification of club ownership in English football. A similar verdict was reached in 2011 by a Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee into football governance, which stated that “the FA, Premier League and Football League have spent too long behind the curve on ownership matters”, allowing “some startlingly poor business practices to occur, and have tolerated an unacceptably low level of transparency”.


The most troubling thing of all is how weak English football’s authorities are when these issues arise. The classic case came in 2002, when an FA-appointed commission greased the wheels of the bandwagon that took Wimbledon to Milton Keynes, which, it said, “provides a suitable and deserving opportunity where none exists in South London”. The FA received assurances that Wimbledon’s identity would be retained in Milton Keynes — as if that were even possible — but, to nobody’s surprise, the re-franchising was complete when the club was renamed MK Dons in 2004.


Compared to all this, Tan’s rebranding of Cardiff, wearing red shirts rather than blue, and Allam’s proposed relaunch of Hull as Hull Tigers might seem relatively trivial. A personal view, though, is that both cases show an appalling disregard to their club’s heritage andfor the feelings of supporters and that, for your average football supporter and indeed reporter, these are small but significant conflicts in a wider battle to preserve the soul of English football.


By far the least significant of the football crimes listed above are Newcastle’s plans, more embryonic than reported, to persuade newspapers to pay for the right to be “media partners”, presumably on the condition that it is accompanied by the type of soft-soap reporting that so many clubs seem to imagine is the media’s duty.


Again, this is symptomatic of a wider issue. It is not about media relations, even if Newcastle are a sad case in that department, having banned their three local newspapers for sympathising with those protesting against the Mike Ashley regime. No, what grates most here is that this daft initiative has come from a club that did not request a penny from Ashley’s company when, for 11 embarrassing months, St James’ Park, the club’s home since 1892, was rebranded as Sports Direct Arena before Wonga.com restored a little of the class for which they are so well known.


Manchester United’s pursuit of logistics partners, noodle partners and official snack partners — “with a history of success and not compromising on quality, Mister Potato shares our commitment to excellence” and no, I’m not joking — makes financial sense. One cannot help recalling, though, that so much of the money that club makes goes into sustaining the Glazer regime or that the club’s otherwise impeccable tributes on the 50th anniversary of the Munich tragedy were besmirched, horribly, by an AIG logo on the huge mural outside Old Trafford.


It is typical, every bit of it, of a culture that knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Allam seemed one of those owners that appreciated the wider value of a club, having invested so much in Hull and then propelling them forward, but his disdain for the supporters’ view over his Hull Tigers proposal is appalling. “We’re City till we die,” they chant. “They can die as they want,” he said, having earlier stated that “No one on earth is allowed to question how I do my business.”


Allam claims that he rejects “Hull City” because “City is also associated with Leicester, Bristol, Manchester and many other clubs. City is a lousy identity.”


Only a cynic would suggest that Allam’s real issue with “Hull City” stems from his longstanding grievances with Hull City Council, who own the KC Stadium and have rejected the club’s attempts to buy the freehold. This is what we are dealing with here: the type of owners who feel a club’s heritage is reasonable collateral in a dispute with a local council. A change in name, in Hull’s case, might be reversible, but SISU, the hedge fund that owns Coventry, seem not to care about the damage being done by their senseless decision to relocate to Northampton out of spite towards Coventry City Council, who own the Ricoh Arena.


Nobody at Coventry/SISU seems to worry about the long-term issues arising from the fact that a Sky Bet League One club, facing a battle to attract young supporters, has, out of bloody-mindedness, ended up playing its home matches in front of crowds of less than 2,000 and a 40-minute drive away in Northampton.


The Football League tried but failed to intervene over Coventry. The FA, in the year that marked their 150th anniversary, have shown themselves to be powerless when such issues have arisen. The self-styled governing body of English football has long washed its hands of such matters.


The weakness of the authorities is one of the great regrets of English football in the 21st century. Frustration tends to be focused on the antiquated structure of the FA, with its bloated Council, made up almost entirely of grey-haired men. They are too conservative, we frequently hear. Well, for once, the FA Council has an opportunity to justify its existence. The next step, after Hull submitted its request to change its name , is for the FA Council to decide whether to to ratify the change as per FA rule A3 (l).


We often hear the English football is too conservative. In recent years it has been nothing like conservative enough where it has come to containing the whims of owners who, bit by bit, are picking apart the rich tapestry of what they have bought into. The “Hull Tigers” debate might seem relatively trivial compared to some of what has been allowed to go unchecked in recent years, but, if the authorities have any intention of fighting the good fight at last, that club will be City till they die.

 

[Tank Top]

Thanks for the Best post, ever to appear on this Forum,

 

[Covstu]

The trouble stems from the ludicrous law that allowed sisu to appoint their own administrator. The appointment should
be made by either the injured party ie ACL/CCC (rent owed) or the football league. I am quite sure we would now be looking at a different scenario if this had happened.

Disagree, it should be solely inpartial and definately not appointed from either side.

 

[davebart]

The football club certainly doesn't play there for free - based on the £0.5m that the Rugby League club are charged to play 13 matches per season, supporters have calculated that the SMC is charging the Tigers over £1m per year. And the owner also charges the RL club £10k a year to display pictures of previous players!

And for Grendel's benefit - just in case he doesn't get it - this is what awaits CCFC if SISU/Otium ever got their hands on the stadium.

 

[@richh87]

Something, someday has to give in English football.

I believe, as fans, it is within our power to influence change.

NOPM.

It is certainly within our power.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[@richh87]

We have to get away with the insular parochialism though, and start working with other fans.

We've got plenty in common with the hardcore Man Utd bunch after all, plenty of them not happy... plenty of other clubs not happy, join us all together and we might, just, have a voice.

Nobody's going to listen to us on our own.

Yeah - they formed a breakaway club, and so must we.

We won't regret it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[dadgad]

True football fans support our position. That is a great article and we must unite and fight this cancer.
KCIC