Brylowes
Well-Known Member
Hmm, it's A and B not 1 and 2 , tut tut .
Mean while back in court (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter sotonskyblue
- Start date
Brylowes
Well-Known Member
Definitely there are probably more Man UTD fans in Coventry than Coventry fans.
Moff
Well-Known Member
You have your facts, I have mine. Lets agree to disagree.
I still cant believe your mates see themselves as Saints fans if they follow another team. I am sorry I just cant see the logic. If I went to WBA games and said I was a city fan, I would expect people to think the same. That is a response to them and not what you have written.
I suspect you took my response more vociferously as I had quoted and agreed with Grendel. I was expressing my feelings, perhaps I should have written it differently.
Brylowes
Well-Known Member
Exactly, there was always a deal to be done for SISU, the idea there wasn't is proposterous.
Trouble is they thought they were the only 'show in town' and could therefore endeavour to
use any means necessary to get the deal they wanted. Think it was as much about ego as
cash, when you think about how easy wasps got the deal done,it just makes me feel sick to
my stomach at the thought of where we could be now.
Brylowes
Well-Known Member
Hell of a lot of damage had been done by that point.
stupot07
Well-Known Member
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
You might believe a deal could be done but I think its a bit much to suggest an alternative view is preposterous. There are things that indicate CCC would not sell to CCFC.
Look back to when SISU came in, the council dismissed any other interested party that required ownership. SISU were their preferred bidder purely because they did not want ownership at the time.
And of course the 'hell freezing over' comments and other inflammatory comments by Mutton and later Lucas.
The £24m Gidney proposed to SISU to purchase just matchday revenue streams.
There's more but you get the idea. There's certainly enough to suggest that CCC didn't want to sell to not just SISU but CCFC.
Brylowes
Well-Known Member
But what plausible reason could there be for them not to sell to SISU, but be willing to sell
to someone else, other than the way SISU conducted themselves putting them off.
stupot07
Well-Known Member
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
For some reason they appear to have a long held reluctance for CCFC, under any ownership, to take control of the Ricoh.
It would seem that the course of action SISU took did exactly what they hoped it would do in that it pushed CCC to a point where they had to sell. Of course despite CCC repeatedly stating how little of ACL's income came from CCFC, how well ACL was performing with the club there etc.
Wasps came along at the right time for CCC. Obviously we don't know if CCC sought them out or Wasps made the approach. Although we do know the current owner of Wasps spoke with CRFC about moving Wasps to the city before he'd even purchased the club. Wasps interest allowed CCC to get rid of a problem without having to concede to SISU. From their point of view a win win.
In no way was this about a return for the taxpayer or the charity getting their money back. If that was a concern a proper sales process, with external agents coming in to carry out the marketing, would have been conducted.
Suspect that will be the subject of JR2 with CCC arguing they sold shares in a business and SISU arguing they effectively sold the freehold when you consider the lease extension.
letsallsingtogether
Well-Known Member
I beleive the wasps were looking at setting up in Derby or Nottingham to try and get a bigger fan base but sparse of rugby teams, any futher North and it is RL territory.
On the way back they stopped off at the Ricoh unaware it was empty.........
The rest is history as they say.
stupot07
Well-Known Member
All while telling fans they were looking to move back to London......
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Nick
Administrator
Really? So they weren't enquiring before we moved and didn't have the internet to see that it was empty?
What's the source for that?
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
They were probably driving down the M6, saw the Ricoh and through lets pop in and see if its for sale.
Broken Hearted Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
I think it was more like let's see what this stadium looks like give us some ideas a bit like when Tim went round the Bedworth Oval.
letsallsingtogether
Well-Known Member
Can only pass on what I have heard although it was common knowledge that they looked around the East Midlands with no luck.
As for the source I couldn't pass that on.
SkyBlue_Bear83
Well-Known Member
Its obvious isn't it, when we were paying our 1 million rent like good tenants then CCC had no intention of selling to anyone be it ccfc, wasps, sisu or anybody else. They were happy to go on using the club as their cash cow, when we stopped paying our rent and moved off to Northampton then ACL were in trouble. The Arena was being run into the ground and CCC became desperate to get rid of it, the last person they wanted to sell it to was SISU though because of the bad blood so they basically gave it away to the first interested party other than SISU with no questions asked.
I brought the wife and kids into Cov last weekend. We spent a fortune in the shops, had a load of drinks in the Aardvark, dinner at Aqua and saw the '80's Mania' show at the Belgrade. So we could both have a good glug and not drive we stayed at the Earlsdon Premier Inn. We had a drink in the hotel bar later and there were a fair few Wasps fans with shirts all with London accents staying over after the match............you can't deny it is good for the local economy. We've seen it downtown a few times now with all sorts of accents coming from the rugby fans in the pubs.
That's a bit dramatic, you are forgetting that they did offer to reduce the rent down to £400k but the hedge fund scum removed CCFC instead and in spite, the rest is history !
Nick
Administrator
Wasn't that going to go up after a couple of years?
Grendel
Well-Known Member
That deal would have had us paying £1.3 million against next season.
hill83
Well-Known Member
I went to that 80's mania at the Belgrade with the mrs last year. Comfortably the youngest people there. Great laugh though, can't beat a bit of 80's music.
stupot07
Well-Known Member
Pretty sure it came out in the JR that was for 1 year only before reverting back to £1.3m pa.
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lamtara2006
Member
I told you not to tell anyone! :facepalm:
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Nick
Administrator
Wasn't there evidence in court which the council lawyer pretty much agreed with?
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
The devil is in the detail - as was the 'free' offer if we stayed in administration... conveniently ignoring the fact if we had remained in admin then we would have faced expulsion from the league.
dongonzalos
Well-Known Member
Fair comment we can agree to disagree. It makes no sense to me either.
I work with loads of people from different areas throughout the Midlands.
For example some I know who live in Hinkley were Leicester fans they now consider themselves Wasps fans. Apparently the Leicester ground is nightmare for access and parking( again I have no idea)
The Saints ones definitely still consider themselves saints fans. Again all seems very very bizzare ato me.
I get lots of people at work asking me about the Ricoh because they know I am a Cov fan and attend there a lot. That is why I know about these scenarios as they come to me asking about where to park getting a beer afterwards, the casino ect ect..,
Most of them just supported their Country and went to the local rugger club for the social aspect. They had no club near by and now have started attending Wasps after enjoying the whole day experience first time round.
The ones who have come and spoke to me certainly don't seem to have the tribal loyalty we have in football. They just seem intent on watching good rugby wherever it is.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Oddly hardly anyone asks me about the Ricoh at work. Odd that many rugby fans ask you and even odder it fits into your argument.
As for passion and tribalism how many passionate supporters of a football club would start a thread saying they were proud of the council?
Rusty Trombone
Well-Known Member
£400k for three years, and then to be renegotiated, according to the judge in the JR.
JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM: The suggestion here was
7 a three-year -- not quite holiday, but a three-year
8 reduction in the rent to £400,000, because it didn't
9 reduce the contractual requirement of £1.3 million
10 thereafter.
11 MR THOMPSON: Well, my Lord, the penultimate bulletsays:
12 "An annual rent of £400,000 divided into 12 equal
13 amounts and paid monthly in advance on the first dayof
14 each month. The rent will be subject to RPI, league
15 promotion and match day attendance triggers, the
16 structures of which to be agreed."
17 MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM: The bottom bullet point on
18 page 1075?
19 MR THOMPSON: Yes. So it's subject to review.
20 MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM: No, no. What it says is:
21 "Any rent agreement will be supplementary to the
22 original and will commence on 1 January 2013, with
23 a duration of three years, to be reviewed thereafterby
24 the parties. For the avoidance of doubt, the original
25 agreement will remain in place."
1 MR THOMPSON: Yes.
2 MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM: That's clear.
3 MR THOMPSON: Well, it's sort of clear, except it's not
4 entirely clear what would happen after three years.
5 MR JUSTICE HICKINBOTTOM: The original agreement willremain
6 in place, obviously, subject to renegotiation, again.
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Grendel
Well-Known Member
So the original agreement is in place in 2016 then
Rusty Trombone
Well-Known Member
If they had agreed the deal, I would imagine so, and now they would be renegotiating it. Sounds a much better idea compared to what has actually happened.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Not really. The club would have been in a massively weak negotiating position and what would have stopped ACL being sold to wasps anyway especially as Richardson was discussing with the council buying it at the time this offer was drawn up.
D
Deleted member 5849
Guest
I'm going to chip in at... this point.
It's entirely possible to suggest that the stadium was never available for sale to the football club, without the football club putting them off... whilst also pointing out that the only reason the stadium was available for sale, was because of SISU's actions.
It's simplistic as said before, but it is pretty accurate to suggest that the stadium wasn't for sale, and there was no negotiation on rent, because there was no *need* for there to be so, from the ACL perspective. From their POV, there was a tight contract that ensured ACL's viability.
Therefore, the only way the stadium was for sale, was to break that contract.
The issue at that point is the curveball that the local council played SISU tactics of forgetting that such things were about an embedded identity (that can, incidentally, be worth more than the short term game) and sold to someone else.
Does it make SISU essentially wrong to break the contract? Arguably... no, as caught between a rock and a hard place, the club was probably going down the pan as well. The main problem they had with their tactics was forgetting there's an emotional investment in there too, that means moving a club costs more than the cost of a rental agreement.
Ultimately, however, all we've seen is a commercial dispute play out, the kind that can happen anytime, anywhere, but of course you don't see it when it isn't a football club and a high profile council asset involved.
The concern, of course, is if we reduce sporting clubs to just commercial terms is... what happens to them as entities, and their ties to their places of origin, which works to both add a stability to club, but also place.
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