Getting a strange feeling of deja vu but I'll bite.
The council baled us out when they completed the stadium and the rent would represent an adequate contribution to ACL costs in those early years.
Adequate contribution? You can't be serious. We were pretty much single handedly cover all the debt ACL had.
Without the council the Ricoh would not exist and we would have had no stadium to play in.
We would have stayed at HR and I suspect would have at some point exercised the buy back clause.
Can you answer the question ........ What should the council have realistically done ? ......................................anyone ?
At what point? Let's start from when the first got
involved.
They could have bailed out CCFC and loaned them the money to exercise the buy back clause. We know they aren't averse to a bail out.
Alternatively they could have loaned CCFC the money to complete the Ricoh.
They could have kept to the
originalagreement giving CCFC a 50% stake in the freehold.
They could have set rent at a realistic, affordable level giving CCFC access to the money it generates.
They could have been prepared to talk with those parties
interestedin taking over CCFC, at the point we ended up with SISU, who wished to purchase the ground as part of their takeover. Remember we ended up with SISU in no small part thanks to them being the owner of choice of CCC.
They could have entered talks with SISU honestly. Remember Fisher stating ACL were over reliant on CCFC, overcharging CCFC and not being run effectively. He was ridiculed on the basis of statements from CCC, Higgs and ACL. It was many years before we found out he was pretty much spot on. How different could things have been in CCC had taken an honest stance?
As part owners of ACL they could have applied pressure against ACL starting the process to put the club into admin.
As part owners of ACL they could have pushed for acceptance of the CVA, which would have avoided a points deduction.
They could have been honest and instead of insisting ACL was
absolutelyfine without CCFC. I note that no
disciplinaryaction has been taken against either Reeves or West who, according to Lucas, gave her hugely incorrect information.
When the decision was made that the sale of ACL was required they could have placed it on the open market to
achievethe best return for the local taxpayer, allow all interested parties to bid and allow all impacted organisations (such as CRFC) to have their say.
Upon our return they should not have been claiming it was the start of a road to stadium ownership when they had, to all intents and purposes, already agreed a sale to Wasps.
Once it became
apparent that CCC had been supplied with hugely inaccurate information, as Lucas herself stated, an independent review of the sale process
shouldhave taken place to ensure everything was above board.