“We actually enjoyed a couple of months of very constructive conversations about a long-term deal here at the Ricoh Arena," said David Armstrong to the Coventry Telegraph's Simon Gilbert. 

“I have seen Chris make reference to his 17-point plan, and I didn’t realise there were 17 points until he said that - but there probably were.

“But it wasn’t done where they came with a list of 17 demands, if we were going to do a long deal - and we were talking about a 20- or 25-year deal, he had drawn up a list of issues he thought we needed to address.

“We went through those line by line and put together a plan that would address what Coventry City need from it and that would still be commercially viable for us.

“We were making very good progress, we were probably halfway to two thirds of the way through the list.

“We still had some points not agreed, but we agreed some of the key points for example how to make food and beverage work from their point of view, how hospitality would work, where to locate a club shop in the stadium - all those sort of things were agreed.

“What we found difficult was, as those conversations progressed, concluding on any arrangement of that sort while the various legal actions and judicial reviews were still going on.

“We decided that we wouldn’t conclude the conversation at that point in time. This was during the time when various appeals were going on at the Court of Appeal.

“I’m not a lawyer but you can’t ignore the volume of comment about it. We felt it was difficult to conclude on a long-term arrangement while all that was still going on. But we had made very good progress

"There were still a few to agree, though I can’t go into the details of what but it was a discussion conducted in a very conductive and cooperative manner over several meetings between Chris and I."

More on this: http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/we-felt-difficult-conclude-long-11419646