Coventry City FC (The Bantams, Sky Blues)

They don't have any choice. If councillors were to sell the stadium for less than its true value they would be forced to pay the difference out of their own pockets.

Hi dutchman I`ve heard in the past that the council would not sell to anyone at any price but someone has to act soon or the Ricoh will be worthless

I agree entirely. A plot and plans were supposed to be submitted by September according to TF, yet it's not nearly Nov and the number of potential sites has doubled. Apparently a year looking for suitable sites to come up with two, and then in the three months after when plans are supposed to be being drawn up another two mysteriously appear putting the decision back. I hope ACL NEVER sell to SISU even at market value. It won't be for the benefit of the club or city. Seppala has said the arena would be owned by a separate company to that of the football club, and would have access to matchday revenues, but refused to answer if the club would pay rental or management charges. Being owned by a separate company, that isn't possible without a legally binding agreement (ie lease) and say's nothing about the rental units, the concerts and conferences or any new developments on the land, which make up over three quarters of the arena's revenue. Plus with the arena SISU have no need to retain the massive cash drain of the club and can wind it up having got what they want. The only people who would benefit from such a sale would be SISU. It is not worth selling to them, even at market value.

Hi AD, I agree with all you say, this is why I say until CCFC and the Ricoh are one it needs one person or consortium to buy out both Sisu and ACL but while both of the aforementioned keep going round in circles nothing will move forward. I would say ACL are losing money from football related events because CCFC are not there which they want them back. This will have a knock on affect on the business which as I said before would render the Ricoh Arena worthless and to be honest ACL are not that brilliant at managing events anyway. I have been to a few corporate events at the Ricoh and the list of complaints would be too long to list, the last one was a complete and utter disaster

AD you echo my thoughts exactly, If Sisu get their hands on the Ricoh I fear for the future of CCFC. Seppala has already stated her intention to charge the club rental to play there but did not disclose the amount. Her only interest is getting the maximum return for her investors, bearing in mind she reckons they have invested £70m to date. That money must have been spent on Sisu wages because it certainly wasn't spent on the team. ACL project their next year's turnover to be £14.5m without the football club and they still have a 40 year lease on the stadium. I really cannot see Sisu or anybody else for that matter paying circa £100m to acquire both the stadium and paying ACL off.

That's interesting as Coventry Council are reported to have recently put around £14m into ACL supposedly to buy out the mortgage on the Ricoh but I don`t think we will hear the truth out of any of the parties concerned. Let's just hope there is a buyer somewhere out there that can get rid of all the above

I tend to agree with AD. Most people, looking at this from outside of Coventry, are now saying it looks very much like a kidnap and ransom situation, i.e.unless SISU get the the freehold to the arena site for a song, then they will not return the club to Coventry.

Yep, time for them all to talk sensibly and come to a resolution one way or the other. If it means no CCFC at the Ricoh so be it. Much as I want them to return home, the first duty of the Council is to council tax payers as Ann Lucas has already said. They cannot give the Ricoh away for nothing or at a ludicrously low price to appease what is a small section of Coventry's population. Last Wednesday was the deadline for SISU to respond to an ACL / CCC request for talks - the request included a very generous rental offer if CCFC were to come home before Xmas. So it was no surprise that what we got in the Coventry Telegraph was a SISU request for talks! A figure of £7 million has already been quoted by journalist Les Reid as a valuation of the Ricoh. Given he has the ear of SISU this valuation has probably come from them. Clearly ACL / CCC will not accept this. £25 - £40 million would be closer to the mark. In terms of profitability, the Arena makes more money from hosting a wedding than it does from a CCFC match. The time is coming soon when ACL / CCC will draw a line in the sand and move on. It is no white elephant and once the last chance of CCFC coming 'home' is gone they will quickly move forward. SISU have said they will build a new stadium just outside Coventry so I look forward to their plans if the Ricoh is a no go. It is possible that they will go ahead with plans to build a new stadium while renting the Ricoh during construction. For all the bluster and bravado in the newspapers this could happen. [ I don't believe they will build a new stadium for one moment but their bluff will be called soon enough with all the pressure that is on SISU and assuming their legal challenge is thrown out by the High Court as expected].

The owners of Coventry City Football Club have suffered a set-back in their High Court challenge to the city council's controversial decision to 'bail out' the operators of the Ricoh Arena to the tune of £14.4million. Coventry have played at Northampton Town's ground since leaving the part council-owned arena in May after rows over its £1.3m-a-year rent with the stadium's operators, Arena Coventry Ltd (ACL). Club owners Sisu claim the city council loan to ACL, which is co-owned by the local authority and a charity, was "unlawful state aid", designed to "drive them out of Coventry". Sisu is trying to mount a judicial review challenge to the council's move and, although its complaints were in August rejected as unarguable by a judge who reviewed the papers, it is determined to pursue the matter to a full hearing. However, after a preliminary hearing, Mr Justice Silber today dealt Sisu a serious blow when he rejected its demands that the council disclose full details of the loan agreement with ACL, along with professional advice it received and other documents. Insult was added to injury when Sisu was ordered to pay more than £7,000 towards the council's legal costs. In his ruling, the judge said it is the council's case that, since April 2012, no rent or licence fees have been paid to ACL for use of the arena by Coventry City Football Club Ltd (CCL). Sisu fiercely denies that, insisting that, over that period, ACL received at least £800,000 for the club's use of the arena from a rent deposit account and under a 'pay-per-play' agreement. However, on August 13 last year, ACL obtained a default judgment against CCL for payment of outstanding rent and licence fees and, on December 5, served CCL with a statutory demand for £1.1m. The judge added that ACL had been saddled with a £15m loan with the Yorkshire Bank, secured by a mortgage over the company's assets. In that month, the bank wrote to ACL expressing concern over its finances and, on January 15 this year, the council decided to loan the company £14.4m so that it could repay its debt to the bank. ACL had entered into a 'hedging arrangement' with the bank and the cost of escaping from that came to about £4m. The council, which insists that it agreed to make the loan to protect the huge public investment in the stadium, says that CCL's refusal to pay rent or licence fees to ACL exposed it to 'significant risk' and had a severe impact on the value of the local authority's share-holding in the company. The council argues that there was "a real risk" that the bank or a third party might take control of ACL, and with it the arena, if the bank sought to enforce its security, sold the debt to a third party, or tried to put ACL into administration. However, Mr Justice Silber said it is Sisu's case that the loan violated European competition rules and the council "has acted in bad faith and with improper motive, namely to remove the claimants (Sisu) as owners of the club". Sisu, which also claims that the council "exceeded the legitimate scope" of its powers and made "irrational" use of public funds, asked the court to order the council to disclose a large number of documents - including the loan agreement itself and professional accountancy and valuation advice. The consortium said the disclosures were necessary if its arguments were to be given a fair hearing. However, council lawyers pointed out that Sisu's challenge had already been rejected on paper, although it is still pursuing its right to renew its application for permission to seek judicial review before a judge in open court. Fearing that the case would get out of hand and become "excessively expensive and burdensome", the council insisted that a disclosure order was not warranted when Sisu's complaints had yet to be declared even arguable. Refusing Sisu's disclosure application, the judge said it was unheard of for such an order to be made prior to permission for a judicial review being granted. Sisu already had enough information in its grasp to enable it to put forward "a respectable case" on most of the issues, and requiring the council to make further disclosures could not be described as "necessary". The full hearing of Sisu's application for permission to mount a full challenge to the loan will take place at the High Court in the near future. However Sisu, made up of Sky Blue Sports Ltd, Arvo Masters Fund Ltd and Coventry City Football Club (Holdings) Ltd, will now not be armed with all the documents it wanted to see. Rhodri Thompson QC, for Sisu, earlier told the judge that the council's decision to make the loan was "taken for the improper purpose of forcing the companies to sell the club to a buyer of the council's choosing and as an unlawful state aid, contrary to EU law." The QC said the club's income dropped from about £11m-a-year to about £5m-a-year after relegation from the Championship to the third tier of English football and it has been docked points for its parlous financial state. Mr Thompson claimed that the council's decision to shore up the financial position of ACL, which it owns jointly with the Higgs Charity, had "no commercial rationale" and was a misuse of public funds. However, James Goudie QC, for the local authority, said: "The council was protecting its own interests in the circumstances in which the football club had not paid any rent since April 2012. Its investment was threatened. It was protecting its interest. It was an entirely legitimate commercial purpose." The barrister attacked Sisu's disclosure bid as a "classic fishing expedition". Mods Note: The text of this post appeared in the Coventry Telegraph, Friday 1st November 2013

Has anyone else got a copy of this LP?

Anyone who wants details of the history of the Sky Blues on TV, go to my wix site which lists all of the club's matches televised from 1960's-1990's with clips to watch. Also on the above subject of missing memorabilia I believe CCFPA have got them in hand for safe keeping.

RIP Albert McCann

I will never forget Albert's peculiar running style - he always looked bandy legged. It didn't stop him being a great player though. RIP Albert, you were one of the best.

I had the pleasure of seeing Albie play at Fratton Park many times when I was in the navy and living in Portsmouth. A real character and a good player.