I read this in the comments section of an article on the sky blue trust website and thought it was interesting. What does everybody else think?
"First and foremost the club should be playing in Coventry and I unite with all supporters in wanting this to happen. However, I DO NOT blame SISU (Otium) entirely for this sorry state of affairs. I agree that they are the wrong type of owners to be in charge, and even they admit they made mistakes when they first took over.
Supporters forget that they bailed out the club twice paying £60 million pounds to keep the club in existence. If you were a business person putting that amount of money in to rescue the club would you walk away? I think not. The financial difficulties of the club go back to when Richardson virtually condemned the club to go down. His famous quote before we were relegated from the top division was "The best thing to happen for this club is to go down and rebuild". In my opinion, an appalling comment. Since then before SISU took over, the club was continuing to lose money at the prestige Ricoh Arena because attendances were below the 21000 magic figure at most home games. Many of those same supporters who regularly shout SISU OUT are the same ones that failed to support the club when we were playing less attractive teams contributing to the losses being made at many home games.
On top of this Coventry City Council and ACL continued to milk the club dry by charging extortionate rents at the same rate despite going down two divisions. There was no sympathy from the Council and little support for their own football club. It took the Council a lot of persuasion to allow the Coventry City badge to be displayed on the outer walls of the Ricoh in the first place. On top of that they hired private contractors for catering companies at the Ricoh preventing SISU from getting any profits from food and drink - unlike many other stadiums around the country. One of the reasons why SISU are not returning at the moment is because our beloved Council and ACL are tied into contracts with these catering companies for the foreseeable future. Another example of this Councils viciousness was to price out the Coventry City ladies team having to play at Walsall for their final game. The Council and ACL were going to charge them £5000 for a match day fee. They couldn't afford that sort of money , and the Council and ACL knew it. Another example of financial profit before support for our local sides playing in our own stadium.
Most away games I have been to I hear "we want SISU out, we want SISU out" that's ok - but what is the alternative? Who is going to take over the club to fulfil the fixtures. I wouldn't rely on Coventry City Council. Many of them shouting this follow on like sheep with their friends and shout it for the sake of it without asking themselves "then what" ? SISU have been under so much stick from supporters that one must ask why they have not abandoned the club. They have not done so because they obviously want to stick by the club learning from their mistakes and develop the club for the future.
Every pundit on TV I have seen has said that the club must own it's own stadium. With Coventry City Councils stubbornness and abdication of their support for the club this clearly is not going to happen at the Ricoh Arena. Therefore SISU Otium have every right to say "stuff the Ricoh and we will build our own stadium" with a realistic capacity to reflect the usual maximum of 18000 supporters that we occasionally got at the Ricoh Arena. It is not the case that SISU want the Ricoh on the cheap. They want to own it at market value - not the ridiculous potentially illegal blocking of a £14 million pound mortgage using council tax payers money. Renting is no good, as we would be back to square one within a few years.
May I suggest that instead of firing on all cylinders at SISU all future protest marches should be directed at Anne Lucas and should take place outside the Council House in Coventry . This should have been done ages ago. There was a protest last Saturday by a small group of only 35 supporters. As for me, I have just bought my season ticket for further "away" matches at Sixfields next season in support of my sky blue team. Its not supporting SISU. It's in protest against Coventry City Council and ACL."
