In the Channel 4 Dispatches programme How to buy a Football Club, which is about improper attempts to buy English football clubs, one of the men exposed contacted Gary Hoffman and expressed his interest in investing in Coventry City, but was rebuffed immediately.
Businessman Joe Sim, who is based in Thailand, acted as the front man for a company called London Nominees Football Fund, a company which had the backing of former England and Manchester United captain Bryan Robson
Working for Dispatches a team of undercover reporters pretended to be potential investors looking for a League One or Championship club in order to try to buy promotion to the Premier League within three years and then selling the club for a vast profit
These so called investors were offered a total of nine clubs which included Leicester City, Sheffield United, Leeds and Cardiff.
Coventry City was not mentioned in the programme at all, but Gary Hoffman,who is currently trying to raise investment to buy the club and The Ricoh Arena revealed he had been approached by one of the representatives of Sim who then expressed their interest in Coventry City.
Mt Hoffman said to the CT: “I did have a phone call about six weeks ago saying that a chap called Joe Sim, who I now know to be the person involved in the programme How to Buy a Football Club, had just failed to buy Sheffield United and he’s very interested. He said: ‘Gary, would you be interested in talking to him about Coventry City?’
"I did a very short piece of due diligence, as I do on everyone, and I decided not to have a conversation with him, which should be of some comfort to our people. So I did have an approach and I said no. People have to realise we have got serious people interested.”
The programme is still available to watch online at www.channel4.com/programmes/4od