Former chairman of Coventry City Football Club Geoffrey Robinson has lambasted the current owners Sisu as a total disaster and called for them to sell up and go.
Robinson's agreement to write off about £20m of his own money was instrumental in Sisu gaining control of the club late in 2007, although he claims there were better alternatives than Sisu bidding to buy the club at the time.
Mr Robinson, the MP for Coventry North west, said, “The football club is a total disaster. They have made a total mess of it, a disgraceful mess and they should find a good home for the club as soon as possible, write off their losses, which they are entirely responsible for themselves and let’s get the club back on the up."
“With this ownership and these people, the club has no future. I have grave concerns about the club because the owners have turned out to be an absolute waste of time and space. The club and the city deserve better than they have produced."
"They gave all sorts of statements about what they intended to do for the club and how they were going to get us back to the Premier League, all the usual stuff, and I believed it. Of course you can’t, in those circumstances, get a written undertaking because you can’t do anything if it doesn’t come off, but I am bitterly disappointed, as disappointed as any man possibly could be.”
Although he eventually agreed to the taker over by Sisu, he says he had grave reservations at the time and he wanted an alternative buyer, but the council vetoed the other option.
He said, “We had a very good alternative buyer but the council didn’t approve of one of the people involved and black-balled it. It would have been much, much better than this but that’s all past history. The point is these people are just dreadful and ought to be held to account or, preferably, just get out.”
Mr Robinson is now backing the former vice chairman Gary Hoffman's attempt to find further investment for the club, saying, “I think Gary Hoffman is a very serious, decent bloke and I wish him well."
"Enough is enough, they’ve inflicted enough damage on this club and our city, please now find a decent buyer for the club, give it to them just as I gave it to them, and please move on. Ruin somebody else.”
The suspension of City stalwart and Life President Joe Elliott by Sisu yesterday was the last was the latest in a long line of errors, misjudgements and differences of opinions by the owners.
The chairman Ray Ranson resigned shortly after Gary Hoffman quit and Mr Elliott was removed from the board. All three men were disillusioned by the way in which Sisu were running the club. Since Sisu took over the club a string of key personnel have also left the club.
Three finance directors have come and gone ,Mal Brannigan, Ed Baker and John Street, two commercial directors have quit, Nathan Kosky and Brian Phillpotts and just last week commercial manager Jas Sodhi resigned.
Directors have also been leaving in their droves. In addition to Messrs Ranson Elliott and Hoffman, Mike Parton, brought in by Sisu left because a lack of clarity on the business plan and Walter Bosco, another Sisu appointee, was removed by them after only six months.
To add to the grim list of former staff, the Secretary to the board John Tomlinson resigned from Sisu and Helen Chandler, who was personal assistant Sisu's main representative on the board Onye Igwe, also resigned last week.
Mr Robinson offered his opinion saying, “It shows that people have got no confidence in them and there’s no future. The people either go or they sack them because they have got no plan for the business."
"It’s death by a thousand cuts, death by inactivity by not spending any money and not doing anything. All they have done so far is fund losses which they are responsible for creating. We never had losses of this scale.”