For those who do not know the history of this, it has been chaotic from the start. Coventry were hugely in debt, so much so that they sold Highfield Road and leased it back to raise funds. They had a deal to develop the old Gas Works where the stadium now stands and to fund the whole thing by selling 30 acres of the site to Tesco for over £60m. Unfortunately, they didn't have the money to buy the land, despite having an agreement to do so and when the construction company had decontaminated the ground on CCFC's instructions, CCFC couldn't pay them. The company went to put a charge on the land to secure what they were owed, found that the land was still owned by British Gas, promptly bought the whole site and told the council if you don't buy it from us we will build a retail site and there won't be a stadium. The Council spent £20m on the land, sold 30 acres to Tesco for £60m+ and the Chairman of CCFC reportedly got a £1m kick-back for organising the deal. This left CCFC without control over the development, or the money to build the stadium, or an existing Stadium (having sold it) and then they got relegated. Since then they have had no money at every turn and have even lost the 50% share in the ground and now it has been sold to Wasps,
https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/s...-news/ricoh-arena-deal-simon-gilbert-12006939
SISU (the hedge fund that have owned CCFC for over 10 years) are portraying themselves as victims and that everyone has conspired against them to prevent them generating funds from match days, but the long and short of it is that CCFC could never afford the RICOH in the first place, have never owned it at any point and are the architects of their own situation. SISU put out a statement that seeks to lay out their tale of woe,
https://www.ccfc.co.uk/contentasset...17d/sisu-open-letter-background-13-mar-19.pdf
It makes interesting reading, but I am not entirely convinced by it. Basically, I don't think they wanted to take on the financial cost of owning the stadium themselves and then got gazumped by Wasps. They are now trying to do all they can to get themselves out of a hole, but having alienated all the other parties, they now need them to co-operate in order to come up with a viable plan.
It reads like a classic case of reaching too far and not having a sustainable business model, but one that goes back over 30 years.