Coventry City Chairman Ray Ranson has said that even if the 50% share of the Ricoh Arena was to be bought, it would not be worth it financially.
Speaking to the CT, two years after taking over, Mr Ranson said: “I am here to make decisions in the best interests of Coventry City for the short, medium and long term,” he said, speaking just short of his second anniversary at the helm. “Short-term thinking only has one outcome, and that’s failure.
“Results are not reflecting all the hard work that we have done but I defy anyone to convince me that the squad of players we have got now, when they are all fit, is not far superior to what we inherited.
“The biggest thing for me is that I still believe the club is moving forward. The numbers of the squad has reduced and the quality has gone up, as has the value of it, but you only get that with stability, careful planning and by being pro-active.
“I read comments by Danny Fox recently, who was talking about the challenge of playing at a bigger club because, with all due respect to Coventry, it is a mid-table Championship club. That’s where we are at the moment.
“Scott Dann went to Birmingham for five times what he was getting here. Would we have liked to keep hold of them? For sure, and if we had been in the play-offs at the end of last season it could have been a different ball game and they might have said they will give us another year here
"But we have effectively replaced those players with Chris Hussey and Richard Wood, who will go on to be as good, if not better.”
On manager Chris Coleman, Ranson said: “Chris signed a three and a half year contract and he will be given that period of time and then we will review it at the end of his contract, or before if necessary.
“We knew what a tough job it was going to be, which is why we went for a young manager who had time on his side, and he fitted the profile of the football club and he ticks all the boxes for us.
"And when we get everyone fit and invest in January, and tweak it again in the summer, Chris should have his squad of players, and hopefully one that is capable of competing at the top end of the Championship next season.
“You need stability both on and off the pitch and if you don’t you end up with the 34 pros that we ended up with two years ago. All I heard when I first came here was, ‘Don’t sell Michael Mifsud,’.
"We had no intention of selling him and we had one offer for him from Bristol City. Where is he now? I think he is playing for a second division club in Cyprus.
“This club sold Gary McSheffrey and with the money bought Leon McKenzie, Chris Birchall and Kevin Kyle, two of whom we had to pay their contracts up to leave, so it actually cost us money to get rid of them. On that basis I think we are doing a good job.”
The question about buying back 50 per cent of the Ricoh Arena crops up time and time again, but with an estimated £10 million price tag for a stadium that makes roughly £1 million a year, the figures clearly don’t stack up at the moment.
“We are the biggest tenant of ACL but, have no doubt, buying 50 per cent of the Ricoh Arena would not solve our cash flow problems,” insisted Ranson, who says he won’t change the way he goes about his business.
“I have got a certain style. It is not everyone’s cup of tea but I do think we will be successful here.
“We have never made any false promises but unfortunately I have learned very quickly that I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. If we tell everyone what is happening and it doesn’t come off, we look chumps.
“We have built up a fairly good reputation over the last couple of years of buying players at the right age and for the right money, but the minute other clubs are alerted, as they were with Chris Hussey, they come out of the woodwork.
“So clubs that had been looking at him, like Derby and Reading, all of a sudden go knocking on Wimbledon’s door and offer more money than we actually agreed with them. Thankfully they honoured our agreement but we have to be very careful and that’s why I try to do as much business as I can out of the public arena.
“A similar thing happened with Andrew Driver. All of a sudden the price went through the roof and you get caught in that vicious circle which we can’t afford to be in at the moment.”