This Coventry City situation

lmurkder · December 7, 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/football...entry-city-owners-northampton-league-one-sisu

Shocking absolutely shocking a proud club is being treated like this.

n the middle of English football's greatest ever boom, a proud club is being publicly strangled, and those who run the game are accused of being no more use than bystanders. Coventry City, formed in 1883 by workers at Singers' cycle factory, are owned 130 years later by Sisu, a hedge fund specialising in "distressed debt", using money from unnamed sources via the Cayman Islands.

Sisu's decision to take the club 35 miles from Coventry to Northampton Town's Sixfields Stadium, and play hardball with Coventry city council, which built and owns the high-quality, 32,000-seat Ricoh Arena, has proven catastrophically unpopular with supporters.

The manager Steven Pressley's remarkably positive start to the season, with a cut-price squad of mostly academy graduates, skidded to two home defeats last week: 5-1 to Tranmere then 3-0 to Rotherham. The crowds were 1,815 then 1,961, comfortably the lowest at any League One match, at the club served by Jimmy Hill, Willie Carr and Keith Houchen, which spent 34 years in the top division before relegation from the Premier League in 2001. The presence of around 7,000 fans watching Pressley's team win 3-1 at MK Dons on Saturday demonstrated abiding support for the club and overwhelming rejection of the move to Northampton.

"Coventry owners SISU threaten to sue Supporters Trust for link to @david_conn's Guardian piece"

Didn't realise this had degenerated into this.

Whats people's thoughts? I think its terrible a club like Coventry are in this position.

lmurkder · December 7, 2013

The council, with the Alan Edward Higgs Charity which, as Arena Coventry Limited, jointly run the Ricoh, recently offered Sisu a return rent-free, paying only matchday costs, but Joy Seppala, Sisu's chief executive, has refused even those terms. She is insisting the council should sell Sisu the freehold ownership of the Ricoh Arena, which cost £113m to build; Mark Labovitch, a Sisu director, suggested to the Guardian that Sisu's valuation of the arena could be as low as £4m. The council, which spent £14m of council taxpayers' money building the arena, is not inclined to be harried into selling a major civic asset, and certainly not cheaply.

Unbelievable.

These money people in the Caymans are tearing a club like that apart.

This is something a club like Everton needs to be very careful about. Secret money originating from the Caymans with little transparency.

Black Belt Jones · December 7, 2013

Thanks for posting that - I read the Guardian sportspages but missed that last week - David Conn is top quality. He should get stuck into our finances, or maybe he shouldn't as it would probably be horrifying.

Total carcrash at Coventry with a ton of blame to go round it seems. Conn writes it from the perspective of these hedge-fund bandits are trying to asset-strip the club, which no doubt they would if they could. Some shady behaviour on the part of the council, though - very unusual situation with their stadium.

manxtoffee · December 7, 2013

lmurkder said:
Unbelievable.

These money people in the Caymans are tearing a club like that apart.

This is something a club like Everton needs to be very careful about. Secret money originating from the Caymans with little transparency.

The sheer arrogance shown by Sisu is nothing short of astounding and they will think nothing of shafting anyone and everything in the name of a profit. The work of capitalism at it's very worst.

Edit: Sisu are based down on Mayfair Btw.