Conundrum! (1 Viewer)

rob9872 · Sep 12, 2011

I don't agree Macca. I think our expectations have significantly lowered and we're under no aspirations of being deserving of Premier League football let alone being a big club or challenging for honours, but we are deserving of running our club in a right and proper manner which I don't believe we are getting. Reigning in the finances is a must, I have no qualms about that, but selling kids, misleading fans, in fact being sparing with the facts about anything at all, moving the goalposts on budgets, hiding behind excuses, telling blatant lies like the Council one etc etc so many examples. All I expect is a top half Championship club to be run efficiently and playing decent football. We will always be a selling club and we may never own our stadium again. I can live with that but we should be in a much better spot than we are right now in terms of squad, board, finances and communication.

Macca · Sep 12, 2011

to be fair Rob you are an intelligent stable bloke (or so it would appear!) but from fans I talk to a takeover means an awful lot more. Very much a case of people expecting stadium purchase, big transfer activity etc.

My scenario is this. SISU go, happy days, we get a football type guy in who deals well with the fans everyone is happy. Then closed season next year the new owner turns around and says "sorry folks, no money the club is making a loss, no signings". Cue unrest again?

My point is that some people say anyone but SISU, I reckon it needs to be someone who can take a financial hit each year and is doing it for love rather than money

Macca · Sep 12, 2011

and I'm not sure in the short term that it will be possible to run the club in a prudent financial fashion and please the fans at the same time

hamil99 · Sep 13, 2011

First of all, kudos on an excellent thread, very interesting question! But I can't believe some people would even consider taking him back. Literally makes sisu look like the good guys! Ok I'm no sisu fan, but since they hav been in they've run the business side of things quite well, reducing our weekly losses etc. Even though this has affected results on the pitch. Richardson can't run the business side or the footballing side of ccfc. He ran us into the ground financially, paying wages for top players (lol!) that got us relegated!! And some ppl actually want him back, seriously beggers belief! Think before u call the devil, he may come!!

Astute · Sep 13, 2011

I am back now.

Read how many people have not got a clue what Richardson did to our club and had to find a hard wall to keep bashing my head into :facepalm:

Richardson ruined our club. SISU are taking all this sh1t for trying to sort out all the sh1t he left. Anyone that even has an idea what he did to our club would not even consider him even getting a ticket to watch us play. If he came back I would just give up and support my local pub team. They would have a better future than CCFC would.

We would be in a great position if Richardson had not bankrupted our club and SISU had invested what they had whilst sorting out our finances. The problem what many fans have stems from how he left us. No ground, heavy debts, no assets, no decent players and an astronomical wage bill. It was always going to be a long hard job sorting out the sh1t he left. We now have some decent players and a good but untried manager that has us playing the best football since before the Richardson era. I think if SISU would have known the extent of our problems or understood how a football team runs better they would have walked away like everyone else did. I am still happy to have a club. Everyone should try and remember how bad things were when they took us over. Their plans were to sort out our finances, stabilise the team and then look at purchasing the stadium. This was done on a breakeven of 24,000. We have been well short of this. Of course this has created a problem. I read on this thread they keep selling the young players. Who are they that were sold? The only assets sold were bought by SISU. We did not have assets when they took over. Yes, things with the takeover could have been better. But the state of the club should never have got to where it was before the takeover.

Back in a bit. Going to pay another visit to that wall

Otis · Sep 13, 2011

torchomatic said:
Jesus, you are so, so wrong! I'm really amazed that fans exist who think Richardson is some kind of innocent party. While Geoffrey Robinson wasn't my most favourite of people, at least he did put something into the club. Richardson was take, take, take.

Otis, let's see why "tis Richardson who gets all the blame", shall we?

In our first season in the Nationwide (Championship) our wage bill was £18.2M, which equated to 111% of our turnover.

- Bryan Richardson earned £184,523 in the year he was booted off the board, compared to £633,193 the season before.

- Backed by Bryan Richardson, at a time when the Sky Blues were cutting back; making redundancies, players taking wage deferrals, Gordon Strachan sued the Club for £300,000.

- Bob Ainsworth on the end of the Bryan Richardson tenure: "Over a relatively short period they've come to a position where they don't own the ground, they don't own the contaminated land on which they hope somebody is going to be able to build a stadium and they don't own all their footballers.

- The club used to contribute £45000 a year towards his pension.

- In this last three years at the Club, despite his massive earnings he still borrowed the following amounts from the Club: £88,223, £79,214; and £59,418.

- Accounts also reveal that chairman Bryan Richardson's total remuneration package rose to £588,045 in 2000 from £217,432 the previous year - an increase of 170 per cent. Richardson's remuneration included a bonus for his work in selling the shopping development on the Foleshill [/SIZE]site where the club hopes to build a new stadium.

- At one time City owned their own stadium AND the land that the Ricoh was built on.

- The club was also paying £415,000 a year to lease back its Highfield Road ground which was sold to Maclean Homes. The club has extended its option to lease the ground beyond the end of 2002.

If SISU did even half of what Richardson did then I would be wearing a SISU out t-shirt myself. While they've undoubtedly made mistakes they (and we) are still paying the price for Richardson's greed. It's a shame that fans like you have forgotten how BAD things could be.

Sorry, but this went straight over your head. You are completely wrong in the reading of my post. Totally and completely wrong and I am not wrong at all. Where on earth did I say Richardson was an innocent party? Nowhere is the answer! Where has anyone said Richardson is an innocent party? the guy did so much damage here at our beloved club. Can't see anyone saying otherwise.

My comment that 'tis Richardson gets all the blame' was in no way showing any endorsement, support or vindication for Bryan Richardson! None whatsoever. Cannot abide the man and he did so, so much damage to this club. He did nothing but bring bad to this club. Where did I show any intent of support or acceptance of Richardson? Just said that everyone blames Richardson but as per usual our wonderful innocent Geoffrey walks away scott free!

My point was that people seem to somehow see Robinson in some sort of positive light and I am absolutely astounded and astonished by that. Geoffrey was the puppet master behind our downfall and it should be he that we fear above all others.

Astute · Sep 13, 2011

This is the reason I am slightly warming towards SISU. It seems as though there is light at the end of the tunnel at long last. People need to remember how bad things got before they took over. If they did not know how bad things got then do a little research. If we were a normal business and not a football team we would have been wound up years previously. I remember very well how I felt the day they took us over. I remember how we got there. I never want my club to be in that situation again.

We now have a team that seems to be going places. We have players that will be in demand. We have a manager that is very astute in signings and the way he likes us to play. We might have to lose one or two of our players along the way. We need to start getting attendances up if we are going to keep everyone. More excellent performances and wins and this will happen.

Otis · Sep 13, 2011

I would rather have Sisu than Geoffrey Robinson any day of the week!!!

torchomatic · Sep 13, 2011

Apologies if I got it wrong, but your post did seem to suggest that you couldn't understand why Richardson got all the blame.

However, I still think you are way off mark saying that GR was some kind of puppet master. Personally, don't like the bloke, don't trust him, glad to see the back of him, but in no way was he controlling Richardson. It was the other way round. Richardson did so many dodgy dealing that we will never know about due to confidentially clauses, etc.

The Club were going to sue him for financial irregularities after he was ousted; bascially because from being in a position of owning our own ground, owning the gas work site and having the money to build the new stadium, it suddenly became clear that all this money was gone.

Anyway, back to Robinson. On more than one occasion he pumped in £5 to enable us to buy all those players that people go on about: Keane, Hadji, Hughes, etc. No, he didn't do out of the goodness of his heart, it was a loan, but he still gave something to the club, something Richardson never did. The reason Richardson was ousted was because he kept things in the dark from the rest of the board including Robinson, McGinnity and Elliot (sorry, "Mr Coventry").

I suppose this is why I don't have the hate towards SISU that many seem to have. We have problems because of what Richardson started over a decade ago. Yes, at the time it was nice to have all these players, but fans didn't realise what the price was for that "entertaining" side.

SISU refuse to do that and good on 'em, I say. No, it may not be as much fun, but it's the right course. If someone comes along and buys them out and pumps loads of money into the club, then great, but chances are that won't happen, so whether fans like it or not SISU are here to stay.

Otis said:
My point was that people seem to somehow see Robinson in some sort of positive light and I am absolutely astounded and astonished by that. Geoffrey was the puppet master behind our downfall and it should be he that we fear above all others.

Jack Griffin · Sep 13, 2011

Macca said:
The thing that worries me is that I think any takeover of the club (unless it is a deep pocketed sugar daddy) is likely to end up as unpopular as the current regime. Look at what a new owner who needs to be frugal will do.

1/ Be stingey in the transfer market
2/ Keep wages low therefore struggle to attract players
3/ Sell anybody who becomes good (because that always has and always will be the case)

The only person who will be popular is someone that can afford to continually absorb losses and perhaps even increase them to push for success. Then its premiership or financial ruin, a big gamble.

1/ (reconsidered) Develop a steady income stream from dealings in the transfer market
4/ Have an extremely effective scouting network
5/ Have an excellent youth policy & academy
6/ Play entertaining football to bring the fans back to the ground

I agree with OSB & Godiva that the usual policy of buying well known players without the income & turnover to afford them is unsustainable, its gotta change.
Chris Hussey & Cyrus Christie are examples of 4/ & 5/ in action, 6/ is one helluva lot better under AT than AB.
Arsenal seem to have got this right, just n a bigger scale!

As for the original point of the thread, we have to hope the next owners will do the above & run the club well.
Unfortunately whether it be GR or anyone new, we the fans will as usual have no effective say in the matter.

torchomatic · Sep 13, 2011

1. I would rather have SISU than administration
2. I would rather have SISU than liquidation
3. I would rather have SISU than Bryan Richardson
4. I would rather have SISU than Geoffrey Robinson
5. I would rather have Robinson that Richardson
6. Hopefully, none of the above will ever happen.

Otis said:
I would rather have Sisu than Geoffrey Robinson any day of the week!!!

oldskyblue58 · Sep 13, 2011

All the members of the Boards that BR and GR were part of bear some responsibility for the mess we got ourselves into - yes to differing degrees but they all are to blame. A board of directors have a joint and several responsibility to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the company. Monies taken out by BR for example in those days would have been approved by the Board

To be honest the thought of GR (or BR) ever making a comeback to our club in any position of control worries me greatly. Worries me enough to seriously consider whether I would continue to pay good money over. They totally lost control of our finances and are the architects of our current position, the reason SISU are here at all.

Why would we go back to people we know didnt make a success of our club and damn near bust us - no matter how much "personal" money they supposedly risked for no reward

Ashdown · Sep 13, 2011

Mr Gaddaffi come out of hiding with your millions, all is forgiven and welcome to Coventry. Anything rather than SISU I think at the moment.

Glenn Storer · Sep 13, 2011

Otis said:
Just suppose .....

1. A backer comes along.

2. They will put in £50m into the club.

3. They will only takeover if the fans are in favour and do so by a majority vote.

4. The backer is Geoffrey Robinson.

Would you .....

a) Not care who takes over and vote in favour anyway.

b) Vote in favour but do so reluctantly.

c) Vote against it.

d) Protest.

Any other options?

B) I don't trust that guy. I just don't. Doesn't help I've seen him park his Jag pissed up across two bays numerous times, something that drives me insane.

crowsnest · Sep 13, 2011

Ashdown said:
Mr Gaddaffi come out of hiding with your millions, all is forgiven and welcome to Coventry. Anything rather than SISU I think at the moment.

Good call, his son played in Italy and was captain of the national team and they once got the Italian supercup moved to Tripoli. They also tried to get the charity sheild moved. Must be big footy fans.

Otis · Sep 13, 2011

torchomatic said:
Apologies if I got it wrong, but your post did seem to suggest that you couldn't understand why Richardson got all the blame.

However, I still think you are way off mark saying that GR was some kind of puppet master. Personally, don't like the bloke, don't trust him, glad to see the back of him, but in no way was he controlling Richardson. It was the other way round. Richardson did so many dodgy dealing that we will never know about due to confidentially clauses, etc.

The Club were going to sue him for financial irregularities after he was ousted; bascially because from being in a position of owning our own ground, owning the gas work site and having the money to build the new stadium, it suddenly became clear that all this money was gone.

Anyway, back to Robinson. On more than one occasion he pumped in £5 to enable us to buy all those players that people go on about: Keane, Hadji, Hughes, etc. No, he didn't do out of the goodness of his heart, it was a loan, but he still gave something to the club, something Richardson never did. The reason Richardson was ousted was because he kept things in the dark from the rest of the board including Robinson, McGinnity and Elliot (sorry, "Mr Coventry").

I suppose this is why I don't have the hate towards SISU that many seem to have. We have problems because of what Richardson started over a decade ago. Yes, at the time it was nice to have all these players, but fans didn't realise what the price was for that "entertaining" side.

SISU refuse to do that and good on 'em, I say. No, it may not be as much fun, but it's the right course. If someone comes along and buys them out and pumps loads of money into the club, then great, but chances are that won't happen, so whether fans like it or not SISU are here to stay.

I thought my post quite clearly suggested that Richardson shouldn't get all the blame because Robinson was there behind the scenes pulling all the strings and is probably more culpable than Richardson. Richardson is definitely very cuplable though.

ccfcdan · Sep 13, 2011

I would welcome anyone into the club providing they had the funds to help us turn the corner and finally make a challenge for the play offs.

I'm fed up of this bloody league and always finishing in the bottom half!

SISU OUT

hamil99 · Sep 13, 2011

ccfcdan said:
I would welcome anyone into the club providing they had the funds to help us turn the corner and finally make a challenge for the play offs.

I'm fed up of this bloody league and always finishing in the bottom half!

SISU OUT

But what happens if they have the money but not a dime of football business sense and spend it all on players like zuniga, moldervan and delorge. Inevitably we will end up like we did before sisu came in, and maybe this time we won't be saved. To be honest, the more I look into what sisu are doing the less I hate their guts, our financial situation is so much better than it was, its incomparable! Ok, the people from sisu were business men and women trying to run a football club, they've done some mistakes, not realising what they do in the board room has a knock on effect on the pitch. I believe they have realised this now and are changing their running of the club!

Overall I'm happy to give them more time. The more they sort out all the mess left behind by Robinson the better.

Astute · Sep 13, 2011

Good post hamil. On my phone at moment. Will press like when back on laptop This is where I am now. We are going in the right direction now. We are short of a few players but looking good. If Ferguson would have put Christie and Bigi in the team and got performances like we have had it would have been called a masterstroke. All we hear is AT got the job as he was cheap. Our previous managers were not cheap options. Then we hear that they only played as we have nobody else. This could be partially true but they will have known they were about ready to be in the team. We have other youth players. Why were they not in the team?

We are in our best position for years. Players will be sold though. They always will be. Every player has his price whoever he plays for. Until we either get fresh investment or we reach the prem we will need the income. They seem to be doing well in bringing decent players in cheaply so far. If they keep replacing players sold with equivelant or better then I will be happy.

Tankie · Sep 13, 2011

It is my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that at the time of the take over, Geoff Robinson was out of pocket to the tune of £20 million in loan guarantees he had made to the club.
The takeover was a cashless transaction, and the shares had to be surrendered to sisu, or the deal was dead in the water.
now i'm not saying that Geoff Robinson,is as pure as the driven snow, but here was a local Lad made good, who risked Shed loads of his own money, to improve the playing staff at his Beloved Sky Blues, he mingled with the supporters on the away trips, unlike the present chair man, who isn't even in the same Country, on match days.
Yes! Geoff Robinson, was too cavalier, in the way he plied CCfC, with money, in order to improve the specticle of our performances on the field, but at least he Didn't sneak off like a thief in the night, leaving the club in Financial Ruin.
he stood his ground and took the Finanial pain which was huge.
Not every one, will view him in the same light as I, but a Geoff Robinson led consortium, would get the vote over sisu, from myself, without Hesitation.
"No Banner required"
Tankie...Heading for the crown Green...

Astute · Sep 13, 2011

The problem is he was part of the team that made the decisions that made the mess we found ourselves in. If you owned your own home and got someone to look after your finances to find out a few years down the line you did not own your own home anymore and were seriously in debt and extremely close to bankruptcy would you be happy for these people to look after your finances again? If I remember right as well he was receiving good interest payments as well. Also money was leaving the club all over the place.

torchomatic · Sep 13, 2011

Maybe Richardson shouldn't get all the blame as I find it hard to believe that Robinson, McGinnity and Mr Coventry knew nothing of what Richardson was up to. Didn't they stop and think "Mmm...I wonder where the money has gone". Particularly Robinson who must have put over £20M into the club over the years. As I keep saying, while he's not my favourite person, he's certainlty no "puppet master". That was Richardson who manipulated, wasted and took money from the club. For example, his nice fat multi-six figure bonus for selling retail space to Tesco, Volume One and M&S. The other dodgy one who hasn't been mentioned so far is Graham Hover.

As for culpability and who was most culpable, we'll have to agree to disagree. You only need to take a look at who put money in and who took money out to realise though.

Otis said:
I thought my post quite clearly suggested that Richardson shouldn't get all the blame because Robinson was there behind the scenes pulling all the strings and is probably more culpable than Richardson. Richardson is definitely very cuplable though.

crowsnest · Sep 13, 2011

Tankie said:
It is my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that at the time of the take over, Geoff Robinson was out of pocket to the tune of £20 million in loan guarantees he had made to the club.
The takeover was a cashless transaction, and the shares had to be surrendered to sisu, or the deal was dead in the water.

Are we sure the takeover was cashless - did the banks really walk away with nothing when they would have got something from admin. Business mortgages make you a preferred creditor in administration and the banks had a few at the time.

wingy · Sep 13, 2011

torchomatic said:
Maybe Richardson shouldn't get all the blame as I find it hard to believe that Robinson, McGinnity and Mr Coventry knew nothing of what Richardson was up to. Didn't they stop and think "Mmm...I wonder where the money has gone". Particularly Robinson who must have put over £20M into the club over the years. As I keep saying, while he's not my favourite person, he's certainlty no "puppet master". That was Richardson who manipulated, wasted and took money from the club. For example, his nice fat multi-six figure bonus for selling retail space to Tesco, Volume One and M&S. The other dodgy one who hasn't been mentioned so far is Graham Hover.

As for culpability and who was most culpable, we'll have to agree to disagree. You only need to take a look at who put money in and who took money out to realise though.

Maybe being a bit simplistic here ,while they all have an element of slipperiness,richardson at the head,surely the biggest fault of all was allowing strachan to remain in charge ,when it was clear that he could'nt affect the team in his last 18months ,there was a certain Sam Allerdyce working wonders at Notts County,prior to his good work at Bolton ,IMO we should have removed Strachan at least ayear before he went . the fact we dropped a division is ,whats fucked everything up,the plan for the new ground was consistent for a club in the prem,and i'm sure if we were still there everyone would be loving this ground,however we history tells us otherwise,we are where we are ,reminiscing on highfield rd , with ACL/ council creaming everything away from our club ,killing us slowly by a thousand cuts ,ipersonally think we are owed some equity from these two parties for the only useful attribute Richardson showed vision.

Nonleagueherewecome · Sep 13, 2011

Some fair points there. wingy. The football decisions are what got us relegated, and it was the relegation that did the most damage. But the way the whole ground situation was actually exploited for financial gain is utterly unforgivable, and Richardson was always on the make. We wouldn't have ended up in such a situation with a less selfish board.

Tankie · Sep 13, 2011

Yes Wingy, an abundance of truth in what you say,
Strachan, should have gone before Christmas,when it appeared clear we we in terminal freefall, a new manager could have added a fresh imputus, but Richardson strangely stuck by the completely spent Strachan.

What angered me were his post match Press conferences, always light hearted, and whimsical, as if relegationl didn't mean anything to him, well it meant something to us, the ruination of our club thats what it meant, You could be forgiven for supposing some form of conspiricy, between Richardson and the Ginger Jock.
Regards...Tankie

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