Coventry Observer said:
in a rare exclusive interview with the Coventry Observer, Joy Seppala
Did Joy write the article for the Observer as well? Reads like a SISU press release!
Coventry Observer said:
The club's owners say they are "frustrated" by the Higgs charity failing to release key information on the ACL business needed for the club to conduct due diligence and complete a bid.
All you can do is laugh at a comment like this after all the 'we can't find the golden share', 'it's just a property company', 'no players have ever been registered to this company' etc when other parties wanted information after SISU placed Ltd in administration.
Coventry Observer said:
I don’t know how anyone could make a bid without that information.
Well the other week it was impossible for anyone to make a bid for ACL as the setup was so complicated but it didn't stop Wasps. Maybe SISU should employ someone who has a clue what they're doing.
Coventry Observer said:
Our preference would have been for 100 per cent.
You know what would have been a good idea? To have actually mention this at some point over the last several years instead of keep banging on about building a new ground. SISU had years where they could have bid for 100% with no competition from anyone else.
Coventry Observer said:
We would want to be sure that any insolvency of Wasps wouldn’t trigger a minimum 10-point deduction for Coventry City Football Club.
Why on earth would it? CCFC and ACL wouldn't be linked other than one being a landlord and the other being a tenant, why would anything happening to Wasps impact CCFC? The most likely scenario would be that their stake in ACL would come up for sale, surely that would be good news for us if we already owned the other 50%?
Coventry Observer said:
We would like to secure our position for as long as it takes to build a new stadium. We don’t want to jeopardise the club's financial position, when we’ve worked so hard to get to a position where it’s cash flow positive for the first time in many years. “It provides us potentially with greater financial security over that period of four years or, if construction of new stadium were to overrun it goes beyond to five or six years, it protects us in that situation.
Oh hang on, we don't need the Ricoh after all, we're still building the new stadium! What's all the fuss about then? If the new stadium is going ahead get on with it. We have 4 years left at the Ricoh to get it finished. No need to make a bid at all. Notice we've moved from the initial 3 years when we moved to Sixfields to a potential 5 while we were still there (the same when we moved back with 4 remaining). Then we had the extra year Fisher said we might need the other day and now we might need another year on top of that. it's almost as if they've got nowhere with it to date and have no real plans to build it!
Is she really saying that she wants to buy ACL when CCFC are moving out and she thinks Wasps might go bust? What's she planning on using it for?
Coventry Observer said:
“There are still two sites we’re looking at but we’re closing in on one. I think we’re creeping closer and closer. I’m quite hopeful by the end of the year we will have signed something – I’m hopeful.”
This week on the 'how many sites are we looking at random number generator' it's 2! I thought this was all ready to go, it was just we couldn't be told as CCC were so powerful they can stop anything happening outside Coventry / the landowner didn't want anyone to know he was selling his land in case they offered more than SISU / some other rubbish Labovich came out with.
Coventry Observer said:
Professor Andrew Russell, head of politics at Manchester University ... Alan Limb, an independent insolvency expert from BRI (Business Recovery and Insolvency)
Is this a factual piece or an opinion piece as they don't seem very balanced views and fairly odd comments to try and shoehorn into this piece.
Coventry Observer said:
Is the council aware if former chairmen or directors of Coventry City such as Ray Ranson or Bryan Richardson have been involved in any way with the Wasps consortium or the project generally?
This is poor journalism. If there's any evidence either are involved then that would be it's own story. This just seems a way to get their names in there without any need to provide any evidence to back up the claims. Possibly in the hope of panicking some fans. If there's something to it run the story, if there's not leave it out.
I don't think I've ever read the Observer. Is this typical of the standard of journalism? This reads to me as a SISU PR piece, scratch the surface and there's nothing in there that hasn't been on this forum and many other places for weeks.
From what has been said by the likes of OSB, Grendal etc on here there is zero chance of us getting the 50% so this can only be seen as a PR move by SISU. If that's the case they're left it too late. They should have been saying they wanted to buy ACL, and all of it, as soon as it was known Wasps were putting a bid together. Seems SISU have been outmanoeuvred here and have responded too late. Unfortunately, as usual, it seems like it will be our club and us as fans who will suffer the long term consequences.
Sorry, didn't mean it to be that long. Sepalla, Fisher and Labovich have a knack for winding me up.