PRESSURE is mounting on Coventry City Council and its leader Ann Lucas as she claimed she had believed information from senior officers when misleading the public with false claims about the Ricoh Arena amid its sale to London rugby club Wasps.
The Observer can also exclusively reveal evidence to show Coun Lucas last week made further false claims, wrongly alleging the Sky Blues had only been interested in buying back the stadium, built by and for the football club, on a FREEHOLD basis.
The evidence, revealed for the first time, comes from a letter written by Joy Seppala, head of Sky Blues' parent company Sisu, to Coun Lucas in November 2013, days after they met to discuss a possible stadium deal.
Coun Lucas made the further false claims in a BBC interview on Friday following a Coventry Observer story which referred to her previous misleading claims that the Arena Coventry Limited firm was profitable before the Wasps deal, when newly published accounts revealed it was not.
Critics have today called for an inquiry, and said the revelations cast major doubts over the entire Wasps deal and use of taxpayers' money.
The revelations raise questions over whether councillors had acted on false information from senior council executives last October when they voted in private to sell the council’s Ricoh Arena shares to the then High Wycombe-based rugby club on a long leasehold - which the Sky Blues HAD also sought.
Coun Lucas told BBC Coventry and Warwickshire she had taken advice on face value from the council’s “advisers and ACL shareholders” - which included council executives - when she claimed ACL had been “very profitable” without the football club in 2013/14. The accounts revealed losses of nearly £400,000.
She also accepted she had taken information to be correct, without any request for further evidence, when asked why she had stated the day after the council’s Wasps deal that ACL was “washing its face” - making a small profit.
Last Thursday, in an article on the Coventry Observer website, the council leader admitted the Ricoh firm had not been “washing its face”. She said on Friday that all councillors had acted on the same information, prompting further questions about how much they knew about the finances behind the Wasps deal.
The deal with Wasps firm London Wasps Holdings Limited meant £14million of city taxpayers’ money remained tied up in a loss making company, amid unprecedented cuts to council jobs and services.
Coventry council’s Labour leaders have repeatedly stated they would only loan to viable and sustainable companies. Wasps, now 100 per cent owners of the Ricoh firm ACL, were also reported to be a loss making company.
London Wasps Holdings Limited reported losses of £3.2million the previous year in the last available accounts. In a statement to its fans about moving to the Ricoh in a bid to save the business, Wasps admitted: “We run a high risk of going bust”.
The council acccepted to the Coventry Observer last week that the Wasps' business plan is based on the Sky Blues remaining as tenants for at least four years. But the loss-making football club continues to insist it too needs commerical revenue from owning a stadium.
It claims to still be seeking land just outside Coventry's boundary to build a new stadium.
The Coventry Observer last Wednesday raised questions with Coun Lucas over whether she had misled Coventry voters, taxpayers and Coventry City fans after the newly published ACL’s accounts for the year up to May last year revealed the net losses of nearly £400,000.
