CCFC reponse to Ricoh affair (1 Viewer)

the have just released an open letter with support groups haven't they ?

tisza said:

All seems very last minute seeing as this has been in the news for the last 10 days or so (plus I hadn't seen the letter until now).

Click to expand...

Decision to send joint letter was made at the SBT meeting last night.

"$hit where do we go from here"

Response? What response?

Joy released her statement last week via Rob. She said it was nothing to do with them, and the focus is on the new stadium. Apparrently she is a CCFC fan now though!

tisza said:

Unless I've missed it there doesn't seem to have been much of a response from the football club to the ACL sale. If the club were bothered by it surely they would have been making a much louder noise than they have done so far.

Click to expand...

The clubs owners response has come from Les Reid and Rob S hasn't it?

Rusty Trombone said:

The clubs owners response has come from Les Reid and Rob S hasn't it?

Click to expand...

Probably just trying to keep up with the CET spinning shit for the council.

Nick said:

Probably just trying to keep up with the CET spinning shit for the council.

Click to expand...

Maybe, but stop calling it the CET, they dropped the Evening part sometime before Wasps dropped the London part.

Rusty Trombone said:

Maybe, but stop calling it the CET, they dropped the Evening part sometime before Wasps dropped the London part.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I will buy you a pint of Carling Black Label to apologise

The RESPONSE on CCFC website

The club would like to reassure fans about our right to play in the Ricoh Arena and the club's future plans...

We want to update you on our plans for the future and reassure you about our right to play in the Ricoh Arena in light of the ongoing press coverage about the sale of the stadium to the Wasps.

We, like you, know nothing about any deal between Coventry City Council and Wasps, other than what has been reported in the press. We've not been contacted about this deal and Coventry City Council’s decision to engage with Wasps has triggered a pre-emption right for the Council which means that the Council will engage with parties other than the club in trying to sell the stadium.

But, we can reassure you that we have a deal with the Ricoh which secures CCFC's right to play our home games up until the end of the 2015/16 season, with an option to extend for a further two years. This means, if the deal goes ahead with Wasps, we have a contractual right to play our home games at the Ricoh.

However, we share your concerns about the potential effect on the club and specifically how the pitch will be kept up to a standard required for our style of play and we need to know that the club will not be adversely affected by any change in ownership of the Arena. That is why, with the support and representation of Fans' Groups including the Sky Blues Trust and the Supporters Consultative Group, we’ve written an open letter to the city's counsillors outlining our joint concerns and we've also approached the Chief Executive of the Wasps RFC to express similar concerns.

None of this changes the fact that we remain totally determined to deliver a strong and stable long-term future for the club and you, our fans. For the first time in years, we are pleased to say the club is financially stable thanks to hard work, tough and sometimes unpopular decisions.

We share your ambitions for Coventry City Football Club. We want to see the club succeed on and off the pitch and this requires long-term planning to build a sustainable and solid club. As part of this commitment, we will develop and progress local talent through our Academy to the first team.

We also want to ensure that the club is a community asset as the community is the source of our support and we want to build on the great work of the Sky Blues in The Community by attracting the next generation of Sky Blues’ supporters through their many initiatives and programmes.

But, if we are to make this happen we must own our stadium. We need access to our own revenues not just on match days but every other day as this is the only way we can only achieve a strong and stable financial base that will enable us to compete successfully with other football clubs.

We realise you are frustrated on the lack of information on the new stadium plans but we simply can’t discuss the details of our latest stadium development plans for commercial reasons. However, this potential deal with Wasps shows how important it is that we take control of our own destiny when it comes to stadium ownership.

We want to deliver our vision of a 21st century facility that a proud and successful club, its players and its fans, should have. You, through the stadium forum, will be at the heart of our plans.

Read more at http://www.ccfc.co.uk/news/article/...-071014-2003415.aspx#Qm46REBPRak7hGUE.99[/url

Joys released a new statement asking to discuss it.

more words and platitudes and some of it makes me have even more doubts. I am certainly not reassured that's for certain

- how long will we be financially stable with the crowds falling way below breakeven and that's if you accept the attendance figures as correct
- the stadium forum was to be disbanded wasn't it?
- they have just spent a year sharing a pitch that didn't affect our style of play or in the end the results
- thought it was a Trust initiative to do the open letter and the Trust sent it?
- do telephones not work in two directions then
- Why are they concerned about the Wasps deal when they make clear they are building there own in the Coventry area
- etc etc ...........

Am tempted to ask will everyone honour the rent agreement but is that being churlish???

lost patience with most of the parties concerned in this ...... just want to watch CCFC play long term at the Ricoh, for the club to have a viable future there....... you know just like most other CCFC fans .......... but we get platitudes and words and nothing else, no facts and no real reassurance ....... as usual the last people that matter in this are the fans

situation normal

dongonzalos said:

Joys released a new statement asking to discuss it.

Click to expand...

Think they need to make a stronger statement than that. You can't say you're moving out but should be involved in discussions anyway. Just come out and say our first choice is to stay at the Ricoh long term with an ownership stake. They don't even need to stop talking bollocks about the new ground for that, they can keep that going and just say its a backup plan.

They've got a chance here to really put the boot into the council, get all the fans united behind them and achieve something that could benefit both them as owners and us as fans. All it needs is one strong statement from them but they don't seem able to do it.

Am really sceptical of any new stadium, even if it does get built.

I honestly believe, hand of heart, that if built, it will be a half baked, tacky, plastic stadium with no character and will just plonk us right down into the lower divisions of cloned, faceless stadiums, done on the cheap.

Great scenario isn't it, going from total disbelief anything will ever be built, to then that of if it actually is to be built, not believing a single word of the spiel and bigging up they will surely come out with when announced.

Whatever they say it will be, when completed I'm convinced it won't even be half of that and I think we will already be starting off from a budget Home Bargains perspective.

For me, staying at the Ricoh seems the only logical answer. But where do we go from here unless Sisu leave?

oldskyblue58 said:

just want to watch CCFC play long term at the Ricoh, for the club to have a viable future there

Click to expand...

Not much to ask is it. I don't really care who owns the ground or who gets the money when there's a gig there - most other clubs don't have that kind of income. All I want is us to be there on a sustainable long term deal and get access to the revenues we generate.

Until Sisu / CCFC table a rival bid then there is nothing to discuss.

dongonzalos said:

Joys released a new statement asking to discuss it.

Click to expand...

but other than you didn't tell me what's her problem? CCFC is a day renter not a tenant and they have reiterated that they don't want to be there once their new stadium is built. So with the exception of CCFC directors checking the pitch will be maintained to a standard they can accept for the next 2 years whats to discuss. They cant have it both ways surely

http://i1.coventrytelegraph.net/incoming/article7897389.ece/alternates/s510b/Joy.jpg

"But, we can reassure you that we have a deal with the Ricoh which secures CCFC's right to play our home games up until the end of the 2015/16 season, with an option to extend for a further two years. This means, if the deal goes ahead with Wasps, we have a contractual right to play our home games at the Ricoh."

"We also want to ensure that the club is a community asset as the community is the source of our support and we want to build on the great work of the Sky Blues in The Community by attracting the next generation of Sky Blues’ supporters through their many initiatives and programmes."

2 quite comical statements their!!
We have a contractural right to play at the Ricoh, thought we had a contractural right to pay the rent. Which obviously didn't mean anything in the end, an the club is a community asset!! The same community that it removed it's self from.

oldskyblue58 said:

We share your concerns about the potential effect on the club and specifically how the pitch will be kept up to a standard required for our style of play

Click to expand...

not concerned last season though, when we had to play on sundays at Nothampton ?

tisza said:

Unless I've missed it there doesn't seem to have been much of a response from the football club to the ACL sale. If the club were bothered by it surely they would have been making a much louder noise than they have done so far.

Click to expand...

How on earth can SISU expect the Council to have anything to do with them, let alone talk to them, whilst threats of legal action are still ongoing ? I think the Court of Appeal date against the JR decision is on Friday ? I understand SISU may still be considering legal action against individuals ?

ccfcway said:

not concerned last season though, when we had to play on sundays at Nothampton ?

Click to expand...

.... and evidently Rugby is played on a Sunday.

In theory it is put up or shut up time for SISU if they have ambitions for the Ricoh ........ looking at the statement from the club and Seppalas letter it seems to me it is shut up that has been chosen. You surely can only read their statements as walking away to build their own :thinking about:

Also can't help thinking and saying again that it didn't have to be this way. The club and its owners (not just SISU but them in particular) chose arrogance and confrontation rather than partnership. For a brief moment I thought we were getting somewhere with the starter deal Waggott did with ACL to come back, but that was a false dawn because the club chose a short term deal and even in his first statement on the return he banged out the party line on ownership.

Not the only side to pass up on opportunities I feel but the owners and directors of CCFC have dug a bloody big hole for themselves and garnered very little goodwill from fans and potential partners to help them

Worrying times..... certainly not reassured

Coventry City may well be dead.

Unless the incompetents sell the club.

The football league still have a role to play in all of this. The owners must not be allowed to move the club away from the city.

I'm hoping that the wheels of a trojan horse are being pushed by Fisher et al. The devil is in the detail of this deal and there may yet be a few more surprises. I hope so.

In the meantime. I think SISU deserve nothing more than they got. I hope they sell up. That seems to be the only way we will succeed in growing as a club.

Otis said:

But where do we go from here unless Sisu leave?

Click to expand...

That for me has always been the key to the whole problem. They're still using commercial confidentiality as an excuse to say nothing, yet expect everyone else to discuss everything in the open & tell them all their plans.