The Ricoh Arena's legal advisor has poured scorn on Tim Fisher's comments that Coventry City will need to look for an alternative playing venue.
James Powell of Walker Morris, the law firm representing Arena Coventry Limited (ACL), told the Coventry Telegraph in a press statement: “We are absolutely flabbergasted by Tim Fisher’s statement.
“Mr Fisher is the sole director of Coventry City Football Club Limited, a company that is now in administration as a result of a “catastrophic insolvency” in the words of the barrister acting for the administrator.
“To compound this issue, Mr Fisher is now suggesting that Coventry City Football Club should play their games outside Coventry. We have to question on this basis alone whether he is acting in the best interests of the football club?
“So that there can be no doubt in the minds of Sky Blues supporters, ACL have not locked the football club out of the Ricoh Arena.
"ACL have consistently acted to try to save the football club and to ensure that the football club continues to play at the Ricoh Arena.
"Indeed, ACL has already committed a significant level of funding to ensure that the pitch is improved for next season, after the club ceased to commit investment in the pitch towards the end of last season.
“Sky Blues supporters should be told on whose behalf Mr Fisher is making these statements. The football club, as acknowledged by The Football League in imposing a ten-point deduction, is in administration. Only the administrator should be making statements on behalf of the club at this time.
“Previous statements have been made on behalf of Coventry City Football Club (Holdings) Limited, who implied that they owned the football club.
"We have asked Holdings to provide evidence for this assertion and they have refused to respond. We note today’s statement by Mr Fisher does not now purport to be on behalf of Holdings.
“So that there can be no doubt whatsoever among Sky Blues fans, ACL would be delighted for Coventry City Football Club to play at the Ricoh Arena next season. Nobody connected to the football club has yet approached ACL in this regard.
“We simply cannot comprehend Mr Fisher’s statement that he has supposedly been told that there is no room for negotiation or that negotiations have been rejected. If Mr Fisher has been told that, it was certainly not by anyone connected with ACL.
“Far from being locked, the Arena doors remain wide open, and ACL remains resolutely committed to preserving Coventry City as a successful league club, and playing its games at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry where it belongs."
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