This isn't a piss take but a genuine question, what now? Surely for you to have a concerted effort in achieving your goals, there must be a plan B? Otherwise what was the point to all of this?
This was only part of our wider campaign to make sure that all sides were being called to account – until we arrived on the scene CCC/ACL were getting a free pass – and to try and get this saga to a conclusion.
We had a great response on the doorsteps and have managed to get the overall debate back from the 'Sisu-out-at-all-costs' fundamentalism to a more reasonable – and achievable – 'all sides must share the blame and create the solution'.
So, this isn't a case of 'we failed, on to plan B'. We didn't fail at all, in fact we see this as a great success.
What next? Well, I'm off to the Scottish Highlands for a week and a well-deserved rest
Seriously though, we want to keep pushing for a negotiated solution between all sides that keeps all possible 'back to the Ricoh' scenarios on the table.
When we first started the campaign we said that 'the council should not exclude from negotiations selling the stadium – on a freehold or leasehold arrangement – to the club’s legal and rightful owners, whoever they may be' and it is looking as if the best solution could be around the club buying a leasehold so that they can have the much needed access to extra revenues and the council have the security of retaining the freehold.
I should stress at this point that we have never, and will never, call for the stadium to be given to Sisu or sold on the cheap.
How to make this happen? Well, many have tried and are still trying so we carry on. The Trust march in July will be a great event and we're fully behind it. It will be great for all fans to come together.
The next CCFC event on the horizon is the JR in just over two weeks. We'll be there but I will say this – don't think it will be the solution to our problems. It could actually make things worse. The JR is only a way to rule on if certain actions are legal. If those rulings are made against the council there will be another round of legal cases to deal with.
Overall, if the council win then they still have to deal with the problem of ACL, a company with very little future left. Sisu will carry on with their plans to try and build a new stadium. Depending on what comes out of the JR heads may roll and there still may be negotiations to be had.
If Sisu win then definitely expect heads to roll although the council could quite easily restructure the mortgage in a way that complies with regulations. The problem of ACL still remains.
Our current plan is to go over a whole bunch of documents and try and get some meetings with some influential people before the JR. Don't expect any more 'campaigns' for a while but we will be pulling together all of our support as, until now, we've been quite a loosely affiliated group.
tl;dr – the election was just part of our overall campaign to influence the debate and keep things in the public eye.
