New post: FOI responses expose Coventry City Football Club’s “new stadium plans” (1 Viewer)

Seems like fishers bluff has been called,
Im truly shocked, didnt expect it off him lol

Good work. Get this in the papers and let's see Fisher talk his way out of this.

hill83 said:

Good work. Get this in the papers and let's see Fisher talk his way out of this.

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I wouldn't be surprised if he came back with something along the lines of "We've had no formal discussion as yet as we're still in the process of shortlisting sites"

well there is a suprise Fisher bullshitting again :facepalm::blue:

The Rugby Borough council one could conceivably have been the rugby club too, when the mentalist took over with grand plans.

maybe it will be the first ever floating stadium on Draycote and therefore we will not need planning permission

Deleted member 5849 said:

The Rugby Borough council one could conceivably have been the rugby club too, when the mentalist took over with grand plans.

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Here you go, here's the Rugby explanation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/english/9537174.stm

Good work. This needs to be thrust into the glare of the national media ASAP before it all blows over and people give less of a shit than they do alread. I suspect Les Reid is on the case but what can any of us do to have any influence whatsoever?! Nothing I fear.

The FL are an utter disgrace, have submerged their heads in the sand and are simply praying that all of this will go away. Nothing has come of their recent admittances, what a laughing stock. To have the audacity to say that they can chop and change their rules at their Board's discretion is beyond belief. Perhaps bending the rules slightly in some instances would be acceptable but to the extent where a community's football club has been rogered up the backside, hammered with a 20 point deduction and exiled to a shithole almost an hour away is one of the most unforgivng acts I have ever witnessed.


No action will be taken against Scrotium if they even bother to acknowledge this information. We will never play in a new stadium because it is utter bollocks. The ONLY way we will play in this area in future is at the Ricoh under new ownership. Which will be when...5, 10 years? I'm sick of this 'we'll do everything we can to get the parties to talk' crap. Who has done ANYTHING? FL what have you done?! Nikki Sinclaire has achieved nothing other than getting her ugly face in the paper, Ann Lucas is a wrinkly old bitch who doesn't have the faintest idea what a football club means to its fans and ACL are a bunch of clueless muppets who release the most bizarre counter statements, 5 minutes after either of the dynamic duo Fisher or Appleton do. 'We can't let Fisher get away with that...quick release something, whatever it says but make sure you put we are committed in seeing the Sky Blues play at their rightful home at the ricoh arena as soon as possible at the end'

After months and months of denial and mocking anyone who suggested otherwise, Fishface has now even admitted that players were registered to Ltd...and why? Oh yes because they have regained full control of the club again and it doesn't matter anymore....his and Appleton's bullshit managed to fooled everyone despite there being concrete evidence to suggest otherwise.

'Oooh please start Administration again Mr Appleton' beg ACL...
'Erm....how about no because I'm a useless bald prick who has already dragged it out for months on end. If I do it again now there is a chance that our cover will be blown'

I'm sick to death of this....It's a bad dream which we are never going to wake up from.

May you all burn in hell, especially you Fisher!

(the parties involved....not anyone on here!)

Ive passed it on to a few sports journalists and supporters direct, see if we can get this recognised a bit more!

I look forward to the 'Exclusive'

Deleted member 5849 said:

I look forward to the 'Exclusive'

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I did mention they all must of course pay me ............ £1 million pounds

Deleted member 5849 said:

I look forward to the 'Exclusive'

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I find that amusing too.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE!! *Rolls Eyes*

SISU guide to building football grounds
SISU guide to accounts
Please file under fiction

fernandopartridge said:

I wouldn't be surprised if he came back with something along the lines of "We've had no formal discussion as yet as we're still in the process of shortlisting sites"

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I have friends who do property development. They would not consider purchasing land and houses without discussing with the local planning offices what would or wouldnt get passed for planning approval !!!

Maybe Sisu have threatened them all with legal action ?

I don't agree that we won't be back in Coventry.

Everything still points to returning to Coventry. But this will be in the Ricoh. They haven't been able to distress ACL so far. This is the only reason we are not playing at the Ricoh now. They must be running out of ideas on how they can do this. The judicial review was a farce. Them wanting the Ricoh and no other ground was confirmed when they appealed the judicial review.

How long can they afford to lose money playing at Northampton? Once they run out of ways to get a distressed sale....as they won't offer anywhere near it's value....it will be time for Joy to get rid of Fisher and at last have talks with ACL on bringing our club home. SISU won't want a legal battle as there is too much proof out in the open to what they have been up. ACL won't want a legal battle as this would bring to an end any chance of our club coming home whilst SISU ruin what is left.

At the risk of sounding cynical (!) people with lots of money, lawyers and PR teams can lie to their hearts contents and get away with it far too often.

The big spanner in the works for Sisu was the Council taking over the Yorkshire Bank's £14m mortgage to ACL. Sisu wanted that to get more leverage to own the arena without having to pay too much and were caught out at their own game. The ongoing attempts to get the High Court to deny it are a desperate attempt to recover.

The new stadium is just a smokescreen and a delaying tactic with the intention of trying to make ACL go into administration, just like all their other moves have been.

Painful.

Noggin said:

I find that amusing too.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE!! *Rolls Eyes*

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In all seriousness I am not expecting this "breaking exclusive" you speak of. I literally sent it to a couple of them on twitter asking to share it. If we can get more people to see the reality and get on our side then it can do no harm.

Clearly im no Nikki Sinclaire ........... :facepalm:

Noggin said:

I find that amusing too.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE!! *Rolls Eyes*

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You may mock but have you noticed how things have woken back up again since Mr Reid came back from his hols?

The Bear said:

At the risk of sounding cynical (!) people with lots of money, lawyers and PR teams can lie to their hearts contents and get away with it far too often.

The big spanner in the works for Sisu was the Council taking over the Yorkshire Bank's £14m mortgage to ACL. Sisu wanted that to get more leverage to own the arena without having to pay too much and were caught out at their own game. The ongoing attempts to get the High Court to deny it are a desperate attempt to recover.

The new stadium is just a smokescreen and a delaying tactic with the intention of trying to make ACL go into administration, just like all their other moves have been.

Painful.

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I agree that CCc taking over the YB mortgage was a game changer.

But I disagree that sisu are waiting for ACL to go into administration - that could take years.

More likely they are waiting to see how CCc will react over the coming months. The purpose of taking over the mortgage was to help ACL management achieve their aim to force out sisu and get in Hoffman/Elliott. As that clearly failed there will likely be a few CCc members who will look at the whole ACL structure and wonder if changes should be restricted to new ACL management or if ACL should be sold to sisu/ccfc entirely. I think the last option is the best for the club long term and it will certainly bring back the team to Coventry.

The Bear said:

You may mock but have you noticed how things have woken back up again since Mr Reid came back from his hols?

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I appreciate Les Reid for the most part and have said so multiple times in the past, however there is no doubt he calls exclusives things that we already know and no I don't particularly agree with your comment, he has written 2 articles since being back related to ccfc I believe, both exclusives, 1 a breaking exclusive, one about the documents that we'd already seen from AOPM and the other about the league saying we couldn't get our 10 points back which we had seen from a poster here on SBT days earlier. still I am pleased he is back, he certainly fleshed out those stories.

I have no problems with the arena being sold to the club, as long as.....

A. A fair and reasonable price is paid for it
B. the ownership is tied to the club, and not an item that can be separately sold off by the club's owners.
C. The Benefits/income streams that are associated with match days are also directed to the club, and not the club's owners.

Of course, it may also be possible to separate the football stadium part from that of the remainder of the arena, and cut some deal accordingly.

BurbageSkyBlues said:

I have no problems with the arena being sold to the club, as long as.....

A. A fair and reasonable price is paid for it
B. the ownership is tied to the club, and not an item that can be separately sold off by the club's owners.
C. The Benefits/income streams that are associated with match days are also directed to the club, and not the club's owners.

Of course, it may also be possible to separate the football stadium part from that of the remainder of the arena, and cut some deal accordingly.

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they will always be able to do this by liquidating the football club, arvo have a charge over Otium and would get the stadium.

BurbageSkyBlues said:

I have no problems with the arena being sold to the club, as long as.....

A. A fair and reasonable price is paid for it
B. the ownership is tied to the club, and not an item that can be separately sold off by the club's owners.
C. The Benefits/income streams that are associated with match days are also directed to the club, and not the club's owners.

Of course, it may also be possible to separate the football stadium part from that of the remainder of the arena, and cut some deal accordingly.

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Personally, I don't give a fuck how much the club pay for the stadium. If they got it for nothing then great.

I'm sure the Football League will have something to say about this.

Yes i want ccfc to own the stadium if they got it for nothing brilliant !!
The tricky part are the acceptable conditions !!!!
1, The stadium must never be allowed to be separated from the club.
2, The club and stadium in the same company and therefore can not be sold separately.
3, Covenants to prevent anyone taking loans, mortgages or third party charges against it.

The last one would probably be a sticking point for Sisu because it would be an asset they would want to siphon off !!!!

fernandopartridge said:

Personally, I don't give a fuck how much the club pay for the stadium. If they got it for nothing then great.

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That comment is only pertinent if said Arena is tied strictly to the football club and all its revenue streams are utilised by the club for the club !!

Ashdown1 said:

That comment is only pertinent if said Arena is tied strictly to the football club and all its revenue streams are utilised by the club for the club !!

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Naturally

fernandopartridge said:

Personally, I don't give a fuck how much the club pay for the stadium. If they got it for nothing then great.

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This is where we differ.

SISU own our club. So SISU would own the stadium. Not our club. Would you trust them to own it? I trust them with nothing now.

OK so they are given the ground for nothing. Then they could afford to offload the club for £1 and make a lot of money. They would charge rent. It is said Leeds pay 2m rent for their ground. And I suppose SISU would allow the club not to pay the rent for 18 months without kicking our club out.

Once the groung goes to someone that don't give a shit about our club it would be gone forever. Where would we ever get the money for another ground? It would be just like SISU coming up with the funding and building a new stadium. Whilst the stadium is out of their grasp we still have a future.

Fern, do you think if the ground was given to them that they would suddenly become good owners?

Astute said:

This is where we differ.

SISU own our club. So SISU would own the stadium. Not our club. Would you trust them to own it? I trust them with nothing now.

OK so they are given the ground for nothing. Then they could afford to offload the club for £1 and make a lot of money. They would charge rent. It is said Leeds pay 2m rent for their ground. And I suppose SISU would allow the club not to pay the rent for 18 months without kicking our club out.

Once the groung goes to someone that don't give a shit about our club it would be gone forever. Where would we ever get the money for another ground? It would be just like SISU coming up with the funding and building a new stadium. Whilst the stadium is out of their grasp we still have a future.

Fern, do you think if the ground was given to them that they would suddenly become good owners?

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I'm not saying that. My statement is purely that I would like CCFC to own its stadium. That means being the owner occupier and paying no rent, having full access to all revenues generated.

If SISU got hold of the stadium it is purely something to use to sell the club. Realistically, what else can they do?

sky blue john said:

Yes i want ccfc to own the stadium if they got it for nothing brilliant !!
The tricky part are the acceptable conditions !!!!
1, The stadium must never be allowed to be separated from the club.
2, The club and stadium in the same company and therefore can not be sold separately.
3, Covenants to prevent anyone taking loans, mortgages or third party charges against it.

The last one would probably be a sticking point for Sisu because it would be an asset they would want to siphon off !!!!

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Like I said this can still be done and worse it's done by destroying the football club. You give ccfc the stadium, arvo call in their debts, ccfc can't pay them. ccfc go into administration, bids come in, arvo and sisu reject the cva, club gets liquidated, sisu own the stadium. They are in profit overall and we have no football club. Of course maybe one of the bidders offers enough for sisu to give up the club and stadium and we are all super happy but if not its over.

FootyLawBlog said:

My latest blog won't tell you anything that most of you don't already suspect; but it does confirm that no local planning authority is in talks with anybody about a new football stadium in or around Coventry.

The Footy Law Blog: FOI responses expose Coventry City Football Club's "new stadium plans"

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Hats off for that. Great work.

One slight error, when you say "In response to the requests, Coventry City Council – which covers the area that the Football League regulations say CCFC should be based (not that the Football League has followed its regulations in its handling of CCFC’s move away from the Ricoh Stadium)".

Not strictly true, the leagues regulations state the club should be located in the "conurbation" from which the club takes its name - and Coventry's conurbation extends beyond the influence of CCC. But I'm being pedantic, and it is irrelevant anyway, as it appears it is all a bluff. It was about the Ricoh all along.

Godiva said:

I agree that CCc taking over the YB mortgage was a game changer.

But I disagree that sisu are waiting for ACL to go into administration - that could take years.

More likely they are waiting to see how CCc will react over the coming months. The purpose of taking over the mortgage was to help ACL management achieve their aim to force out sisu and get in Hoffman/Elliott. As that clearly failed there will likely be a few CCc members who will look at the whole ACL structure and wonder if changes should be restricted to new ACL management or if ACL should be sold to sisu/ccfc entirely. I think the last option is the best for the club long term and it will certainly bring back the team to Coventry.

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sell to sisu the best option ? you must be on drugs..............

Godiva said:

I agree that CCc taking over the YB mortgage was a game changer.

But I disagree that sisu are waiting for ACL to go into administration - that could take years.

More likely they are waiting to see how CCc will react over the coming months. The purpose of taking over the mortgage was to help ACL management achieve their aim to force out sisu and get in Hoffman/Elliott. As that clearly failed there will likely be a few CCc members who will look at the whole ACL structure and wonder if changes should be restricted to new ACL management or if ACL should be sold to sisu/ccfc entirely. I think the last option is the best for the club long term and it will certainly bring back the team to Coventry.

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I didn't say they were waiting. To be clear: I know that they are actively trying to force the issue. Whatever the whys & wherefores of the debate, the Sisu people, rightly or wrongly, have a track record in restructuring, company administrations, distressed companies, bad debt & outlier investments. It's how they make their money.

I take your argument re: forcing out Sisu but to look at it from a business point of view within the Council, they are protecting their investment in restructuring the debt rather than have it taken from them by an outside party for financial gain. They do have a responsibility to their council tax payers and if I were one, I'd be pretty narked that a bunch of offshore investors were trying to take money out of local coffers.

I do think that there are some people within the club that are running certain aspects better than any of the previous clowns in the Richardson/Robinson era and immediately post-takeover but the overall plan of the current owners is to get as many business assets possible for as little money and the football club are not going to benefit and the supporters even less.

Another major point is the renegotiated lease agreement that was all set to fly and then was scuppered by Sisu after the fact. I really can't trust these people and the more I dig, the less I like.

fernandopartridge said:

I'm not saying that. My statement is purely that I would like CCFC to own its stadium. That means being the owner occupier and paying no rent, having full access to all revenues generated.

If SISU got hold of the stadium it is purely something to use to sell the club. Realistically, what else can they do?

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Would anything they do surprise us anymore?

My major worry would be splitting our club from the ground. They don't want to own a football club. Football clubs rarely make money. Their business is making money. They want to own the ground. There would be rental income plus whatever else they could make from running the ground. Then at a later date they could sell the ground at an inflated rate. They could let our club go for a quid.....what they paid for it.......and pass on debts with the club. They could even liquidate our club once they had the ground. The ground would be put into one of the many sections of SISU so they wouldn't lose it on liquidating our club.

There are many things they could do. I would say they would do whatever makes them the most money. This wouldn't include continuing running our club or keeping club and ground together which is what we all want.