Ok I see where these arguments are going. Lets at least take the facts and look.
The rental deal and associated match day fees etc etc was far too high and unsustainable. The period led by Ranson proved too costly.
The Hedge Fund has been quite successful at what they do regardless of how you might think morally. Running a football club is not one of their fortes though is it? However facts are while we have been relegated twice and they admit mistakes and appointments of people who were very poor at running things, they did then get a hold of a tragic situation and to this day have kept the club alive here in the 3rd tier. They have been rebuffed by the council/ACL regarding the Ricoh deal required to make the club sustainable. Then the council rather underhandedly kept ACL alive by the loan that is the subject of a JR now. Why did the council not simply find a solution with the football club to acquire the stadium they helped to complete in the first place? The council should have done all it could to help the communities football club stay at the purpose built stadium. I will accept SISU acted in ways that defy logic at times but we don't know the whole truth do we? When our own council rejected the deal that saw us get a 10 point deduction I failed to see the sense in their actions and SISU acted the only way they could to save the club. It would have been so easy for SISU to have walked away bruised but they did not tbf. They know that the stadium is a must for the football club and if run properly eventually lead to a profit on investment. The debt everyone keeps bantering around is largely paper talk or the club would have been ditched long ago.
I'm not happy with SISU as owners of my club but I'm sure not happy with the community spirit being shown by the council towards our football club either. It seems to me the council should be wholeheartedly behind the football club in reuniting them with the stadium and not hell bent on operating it their way, like they were a private enterprise themselves? It's perhaps time to realise we will not get new owners of our football club until we have a stadium to play in. The council seem to be vengeful and SISU likewise in pursuit of their goals but someone and at the moment the only one standing up for the club is SISU however deranged that may seem at times.
Kept our club alive in Division 3? They are not going to get any thanks from me for that. Their poor decisions put us there. And the reason we are still going is that they want their money back that they have wasted. They have not kept our club going for the love of it or us supporters.
Rebuffed by CCC/ACL? Different lower rent offers and F+B were offered to them. The last one was rent free for last season and a lower rent than at Northampton were offered. As we all know these were turned down. And what about the so called road map where SISU wouldn't give Higgs the money up front, but wanted to pay over 10 years. They wouldn't even give Higgs a guarantee of funds. For the small amount of 5.5m they would have had a 50% share of ACL. Instead we stayed in Northampton. So who was it that didn't want to make a deal that made our club sustainable?
Underhandedly kept ACL alive with the loan that the JR is all about? So are you saying that the judge was wrong? The loan was facilitated about a year after the so called road map was agreed on. That all started wrong when SISU stopped paying the rent and didn't keep to the Higgs agreement. The judge agreed that SISU didn't have any plans to follow through with the road map plans months before the loan was refinanced.
CCC didn't try to keep our club at the Ricoh? Was that an attempt at a joke? So none of the above were not attempts to keep our club at the Ricoh? Wasn't it SISU that didn't want to keep our club at the Ricoh? Don't you think that the so called road map was a way of SISU getting their hands on the Ricoh and income that comes from it? And yes it was CCC that got it built and not just helped with the build.
We all agree that SISU did things that defied logic. You said that CCC cost our club 10 points. So nothing to do with SISU threatening to liquidate our club? The threat is still there and has been for 2 years now. CCC threatened admin so then SISU beat them to it so they could have Appleton do it.
The stadium is a must to take our club forward? Yes. But the freehold isn't needed. An extended agreement with a low rent would be best all round. Buy the Higgs share. Have 50% of ACL. This would be best for our clubs future. This way they would get the income but couldn't then just charge our club whatever they wanted to in the future as they would have to agree the rent with CCC.
CCC hell bent on running the stadium? :thinking about: So what was the road map all about then? It looks like you are trying to blame CCC for everything. They have tried, but each time they offered SISU what they said they wanted they asked for more. This carried on until SISU asked for more than they could get.
All the value is in the lease. But Labo and Joy would want you to believe that the lease is worthless. They tried this on with the judge who saw through it straight away. It is the freehold that hardly has any value presently. This part is true that he keeps going on about. So for 5.5m they could have had a half share in the most valuable part of the arena. But local councils don't normally let freeholds go. This isn't just CCC but every local council. And our club would have a more secure future with CCC overseeing rent rises and such. I would look at it differently if I could trust SISU, but what have they ever done to gain our trust? Is the arena valueless? We all know it isn't. So both the lease and freehold can't be valueless. The untruths and twisting of words must stop if they want us behind them.
SISU standing up for our club? Not at all. They are standing up for their investors. That is what they are supposed to do. I don't have a problem with that. But I do have a problem with what they are doing to our football club and us supporters to try and get what they want for their investors.
All we can now do is get the JR out of the way. SISU still see themselves as having a chance of getting some sort of decision, although it won't get them what they want. It won't get them the freehold. They could have had 50% of that over a year ago. And they will have lost nearly half that much by now with loss of earnings from moving our club, legal fees and loss of shop based earnings.
It is time to get around a table and negotiate. Negotiate what is good for all sides. And keep to it. Would Higgs be willing to try again? We all know they want out. They saw it as a short term thing. But how much trust do they have left in SISU after the last court case? If they want a freehold quickly they should build. But this is not a good way of going. Even more debt on top of the debt they have run up so far. They know this. But a short term rental agreement will help pay for it whilst it is getting built would be the way to go. Or do things the way they should have already and build trust.