Coventry City’s future at the Ricoh hangs in the balance
COVENTRY City’s future at the Ricoh Arena is once again in doubt following the collapse of talks between the club’s owner Sisu and the stadium’s owner ACL.
A row over rent payments has been rumbling on for months but now ACL has issued Sisu with an ultimatum.
A statement from Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) said it would not resume talks until club owners Sisu accept an agreement drawn up in January.
It included a new rent of £400,000 a year – down from £1.29m – and an offer to write off £300,000 from the £1.3m pounds that Sisu owes in back rent.
The deal would have seen their outstanding rent arrears cut to £1m with the club also getting a share of the match day revenue.
The football club’s owners have been in dispute with its landlord for the last year. It claims that the level of rent it is being charged is unrealistic for a club playing in the third tier of English football in front of relatively small crowds and with no access to lucrative TV deals available to clubs further up the football ladder. Sisu has effectively been on a rent strike since last April.
The ACL statement said: “Make no mistake, now is the time for Sisu to pay up or sell up and get out of Coventry.”
It claimed that the club directors had “reneged” on the deal.
Chairman Nicholas Carter said: “There’s simply no point in continuing these discussions while the club, under Sisu’s ownership, continues to behave in this manner.
“If the club directors can’t or won’t follow through on the agreement they participated in creating, then we suggest to them that the time has come to consider offering ownership of CCFC to an outside buyer better placed to run the club’s financial operations.”
Coventry City moved to the Ricoh Arena in 2005. If, as its owners have threatened, the club does leave the stadium its only option would seem to be a ground share until a new home is built.
A number of ground-sharing options have been mooted including moving in with Northamptonshire-based Rushden and Diamonds.
