The Sky Blue Trust is disappointed, dismayed and angry about the announced move for Coventry City to be uprooted and to play its “home” matches 35 miles away in Northampton for up to 5 years. The dispute between SISU, the ultimate owners of CCFC, and the Ricoh Arena operators, ACL, has gone on for an interminable time but this latest unnecessary move is a dagger blow through the hearts of thousands of Coventry City supporters.
Whilst SISU insist that this move is vital for the club to survive, the Sky Blue Trust maintains that exactly the opposite is true – this move could well destroy our club. Crowds will plummet, revenue will be slashed and therefore, under SCMP rules, our playing budget will be a fraction of the current one – our squad will consist of kids and cheap journeymen. SISU have managed to relegate this club once already and with the club still under transfer embargo, potentially well into the new season, the prospects for any success look very bleak.
What will be left should SISU ever bring the remnants of this once proud club back? A move away for any length of time needs the fans' backing. Thousands have told the club they do not agree with the move yet they are ignored by the club and the Football League, treated with contempt and SISU plough on with their ill-conceived plans. A generation of young supporters, the very life blood of the club, will be lost, never to return.
The most unpalatable aspect in all of this is the toothless and impotent stance of the Football League. Coventry fans have become sick and tired of the rhetoric and posturing between the two antagonists and the Trust continues to call for both parties to get together and negotiate properly, for the good of the supporters, the community and, ultimately, themselves. The Football League has simply watched and allowed this to spiral out of control and will be fully complicit in the death of our football club. The League's own rules on ground sharing say: "The Board will not generally approve any ground-sharing arrangement where the club plays its matches outside the conurbation, as defined by the Board, from which the Club takes its name or with which it is otherwise traditionally associated." By no possible stretch of the imagination can Northampton, in the East Midlands, be said to be part of the same conurbation as Coventry. Why have the League departed from their own rules?
Football supporters were told that never again would the “Wimbledon” situation be allowed to happen but now it appears that for £1 million you can move a club to wherever you wish. What will the Football League do, if and when SISU follow their usual business practice and renege on paying the bond? Or fail to move back within the specified period? Or fail to pay their new landlords? Put the club under transfer embargo? – hardly an unfamiliar position for this club! The Football League has yet again shown itself unfit to govern football in this country and it is about time the Government stepped in and sorted out the pathetic way our beloved game is run.
The Football League state: “We are at the heart of 72 communities across England and Wales, and share the pride and heritage of each.” Clearly not in Coventry!
The Football League have let the supporters of this club and every other club down very badly. They have shown quite clearly that football belongs to big business and not the fans. Their decision demonstrates a total disregard for the lifeblood of the game at any club – the fans, all in the name of the supposed integrity of their competition. They have given the green light to any unscrupulous owner who wishes to uproot their club against the wishes of the fans. For £1 million they will simply rubber stamp it.
The Football League's motto “Real Football, Real Fans” should be changed to “Real Football, Real Fans? – Not Really!"