In his Judicial Review verdict Mr Justice Hickinbottom confirmed with forensic precision what many of us had previously suspected about SISU’s motivation in owning the football club. The only way for SISU to realise value from the club, and to win a return on their purported £50m losses, is to get their hands on the Ricoh Arena for a knock-down price. Had they won the JR, the resulting financial distress caused to ACL might well have been sufficient to provoke just such a fire sale.
But SISU’s strategy in pursuing the JR has failed. Even if they now appeal, as they have said they will, the likelihood of a third hearing being found in their favour looks slim, given the emphatic statement we have already received from Mr Hickinbottom.
So what will SISU do next?
For me the key question is “where is the value to SISU in owning the club?” Or to put it another way, “what leverage does SISU continue to hold by owning the club?”
First, SISU owns the golden share which allows the club to play in the football league. There is, we are told, no direct financial value in the golden share, but there is a lot of leverage in the sense that it’s what keeps the club in league football.
Second, SISU owns the player registrations and the Ryton training ground. There is some financial value in these, the assets of the club, but clearly not enough to offset £50m.
Third, SISU has ownership of an entity whose history, traditions and future are held dear by many thousands of people, the “family” of CCFC. That includes past and present players and management,
but primarily it’s us, the fans. There’s a big emotional investment in the club by this “family”. Little immediate financial value to SISU here but plenty of leverage over decision-making in the city of Coventry.
In the aftermath of the JR, how can SISU best use the “leverage” that ownership continues to give them?
I have to confess I’m short of ideas here. There’s not much financial value in owning a League One club which has no ground of its own and is consistently running at a loss. There’s no point in losing even more money by building an unnecessary new stadium. And there’s nowhere left to go in terms of bludgeoning the council and ACL into selling the Ricoh. SISU could threaten to liquidate the club as a form of blackmail, but carrying this through would be the financial equivalent of suicide, and seems pointless.
So I’m intrigued to see just what Joy and Tim will do next. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that they will cut their losses and sell-out to a new owner…and steel themselves for the wrath of their investors for having jumped into such an ill-advised adventure in the first place. Or maybe they will
simply sit tight and maintain the current slow decline, if only to avoid having to admit defeat.
But what does occur to me is that if we remove the leverage afforded by owning the golden share, and by the continued commitment of the fans to the entity known as CCFC, then two things happen.
First, the value of the club to SISU becomes practically zero. They have no leverage left.
Second, the possibilities for the future of football in Coventry suddenly become unconstrained.
So just as a thought experiment…if the fans of CCFC were to transfer their allegiance en masse to a
“new” club in Coventry, and were willing to support this club as it worked its way through the lower leagues, then SISU’s influence over football in the city would become history. SISU would be left with the ruins of the “old” CCFC entity - a few financial assets and a lot of debt - but with no leverage at all over the destiny of football in Coventry. The “phoenix” football club could initially raise money through a fan subscription / crowd funding scheme, with perhaps some parallel investment from benign business allies. Shareholding in the club, and board representation, could be determined along similar lines and protected by a new constitution. And if the fans turned up on match days in sufficient numbers the club could probably negotiate terms to play at the Ricoh from day one.
Some will say that even conducting this thought experiment is a kind of betrayal. How can we consider dumping 130 years of our proud club’s history? What about the future of the players, the management and other employees of CCFC? And just how many years would it take to get back into football’s elite divisions?
To this I would reply that it is we as fans who deliver this commitment – this emotional investment - and we who have the freedom to decide where to place it. If we choose to transfer our allegiance to a reborn club…along with the Sky Blue strip, the Ricoh Arena, the Jimmy Hill statue, the tribute wall,
the memories of players and heroic deeds from the past…then the continuity remains. And by choosing this route we take back – indeed we radically change - our involvement in the governance and destiny of our club.
The alternative is more gridlock, further decline and potential oblivion.