Duffer, I respect your opinion and enjoy reading your post but please can you explain to me how you would have dealt with the Wasp situation.
Please note that if you were running ACL/CCC and there was a serious buyer who behaved in a professional business manner to your liking, made you a reasonable offer compared to the other organisation which had become a thorn on your side , unprofessional and constantly carrying out law suits against you knowing the fact that they were spending more on legal fee's against you than what the original contracted annual rent was that they decided to stop paying and then finally you come to a point and have decided enough is enough, time is ticking against you and you can't afford to lose this deal otherwise you be back to square one as again hostages to a possible forced takeover which would result financially in you ending up with nothing.
Now you are in charge of ACL...How would you deal with this? How would you play it???
Also note into your decision the fateful comment TF made when he left the Ricoh for Sixfields that SISU are not staying at the Ricoh to subsidise ACL/Higgs. So the option of CCC/ACL/Higgs subsidising SISU/CCFC can become an issue for you with your own colleagues and other elected councillors.
Hi Dai, you must be the only one here who does respect my opinion, so thanks for that.
Honestly, if it had been me at the council I simply wouldn't have countenanced the offer from Wasps, because of the franchise issue.
But leaving that huge moral showstopper aside, I think the way I would have played it, would have been to talk to SISU (behind closed doors) and tell them that after due consideration the Council & Higgs share in ACL might be avaiable for purchase - and would they now be interested in entering into genuine negotiations based on 100% of ACL and a long lease extension? It wouldn't be unreasonable to make dropping the legal action a requirement of those negotiations, imho.
It's worth bearing in mind that regardless of SISU's daft posturing on the stadium issue, until the news about Wasps broke the council's stated position on the Ricoh was to get the club back and build trust, and that ACL was profitable and there was no rush to sell now (or ever).
If SISU still didn't want to enter negotiations, then I'd point out to them that there was the real possibility that a third-party would take over ACL on the terms above, and at that point CCFC would lose all possiblity of
ever having a similar deal.
If SISU still backed away then I might entertain the deal with Wasps, but still handle it in a vastly different way...
The next thing I would do, would be to talk to Coventry RFC, under a binding non-disclosure agreement, and introduce them to Wasps at that point. If Wasps could convince Coventry RFC that a deal would be good for them, then I'd progress to the next step. If not the deal dies there - that, after all was supposed to be one of the council's own stated dealbreakers.
Assuming that CRFC are happy, the next dealbreaker is to secure the future for CCFC at the Ricoh. To do this, I would make the Wasps deal contingent on their agreement to put in place a permanent rent-deal to the part of CCFC that holds the golden share. I would put in place a contractual obligation for this deal to remain available to CCFC for as long as Wasps are in place at the Ricoh, and regardless of what owners are in place at CCFC, or whether the club at some point moved out or underwent administration. The deal would have to include the possiblity of the rent decreasing if the club were further relegated, or went through liquidation and had to start again as a phoenix club. Rent increases would be limited to annual, index-linked amounts only. This is the only way that the club's long-term future at the Ricoh could truly be ensured (other than them purchasing a stake). The current deal does not, despite what the Council imply, offer a certain future to the club beyond the current 2+2 deal.
At the point we've got CRFC on-board, and CCFC taken care of contractually, I'd be willing to offer the Ricoh to Wasps. But this on the assumption that ACL was loss-making rather than profitable (if it's profitable, then there's no need to sell, and all the council have to do is sit tight until SISU give in).
At the moment, it's clear to me that the council's supposed deal breakers haven't really been considered at all - if I was a councillor I'd find it embarassing to pretend that they have. I can only assume that they think we're all idiots.
Of course though - it's a franchise, and it's still not morally acceptable, so in truth I'd just never sell to Wasps regardless. This is where I came in I think.
