dste wrote:You will have to excuse my ignorance but what exactly has been happening at the club?
The decline started when we were relegated from the Premier League over 10 years ago, plans we made for a new stadium when we were in the Premier League and instead of being sensible and scrapping the project, the board pushed forward and signed up to the project that was heavily funded by the council and local charity and other people, to sum it up, nearly all the gate revenue goes back to these people and very little to the club.
A few years ago we were on the brink of administration due to the above and bad transfer/managerial appointments, it was a few hours before the deadline and a company stepped in called SISU, who are basically hedge fund investors, they promised to buy the stadium for the club outright and heavily invest in the squad to get us back in the Premier League.
Things went quiet for a season and the fans were told that debts were being paid off and the training ground was be renovated, which it is was, but the selling of star players and the lack of reinvestment was starting to cause some concern for us fans. After some poking around it turned out that SISU was quiet a dark company and it was hard to find out exactly who the investors in the club were and who was running the operation.
Slowly less money was pumped into the club, then the resession hit and the merry go round in the board room happened, so there was never a single fixed chairman for months, last summer all the top players were sold, the chief scout Andy Thron was made manager and left to field a team made up of average players, youth team and loan signings.
Other then being relegated today, the club has an transfer embargo due to unpaid taxes, and the rental fee on the Ricoh arena has not been paid, in theory we could be playing in League 1 with a youth team, no stadium and no manager, as Andy Thorn's contract will expire in a few months......great being a Sky Blues fan!!
Although, I must admit some new investors are on the horizon, Richard Keys (ex Sky Sports) is a kind of spokesperson for them and trying to push things forward, a deal was submitted early last year, but was rejected for reasons unknown.........hopefully SISU will be more open to negotiations now.