oldskyblue58
CCFC Finance Director
Coventry City Football Club and its owners' primary objective remains building a long-term future...
The Judgement by Hickinbottom J, that the Council's (CCC) decision to provide a £14.4 million loan to private stadium management company Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) was not an unlawful subsidy, is unfortunate.
The football club and its owners believe that the loan, which exceeded the value of the stadium by almost 200%, was neither lawful nor in the interests of the supporters, taxpayers, stadium operators or the Club.
ACL will now remain burdened with debt for the next 43 years, removing any prospect of a long term return to the stadium by the Club.
With this level of debt there is no realistic prospect of any sports franchise or ACL being able to generate sufficient revenue to be commercially viable.
We will apply for leave to appeal this decision. Now, more than ever, the new stadium is the only viable commercial option. The owner's primary objective remains building a long term sound financial platform for the future growth of the Club.
Read more at http://www.ccfc.co.uk/news/article/...e-one-300614-1706394.aspx#r0PA8t2oRmjhBxPl.99
Still everyone else's fault I guess then.
The judge acknowledged the Loan to Value argument but made a clear distinction between a new investors actions and those of an existing key stakeholder.
It would seem to me that the Council and ACL are happy with the loan arrangement. Equally who is to say that the loan wont be paid down earlier, it has happened before when ACL paid off over £3m early.
Not sure why this stops CCFC or a n other sport franchise returning, why are the loan and a return mutually exclusive? Perhaps they are for SISU but other rent and agree deals on incomes. Interesting they call it a franchise though perhaps :thinking about:
How do they know ACL can't be viable without CCFC? They have not seen the ACL records have no idea of the sales pipeline etc. They keep making such statements..... the Judge of course had his own opinion as to how well CCFC was managed over the years that SISU have owned it - not at all positive about there management skills
So a club with nearly 50m in debt interest payments over 1.5m very little income except player sales can fund £30m to build a stadium and pay even more interest ...... really? :thinking about:
That last sentence suggests that they are staying .............. or do they have to say that ?