No End In Sight: The Continuing Agony For Coventry City Supporters

Just 1,637 people turned out for Coventry City’s last “home” match. The game against Walsall, played 35 miles away in Northampton, marked another low point in a season defined by absence and apathy. The attendance figure is a stark symbol of the ongoing boycott by the vast majority of supporters, and it offers a grim preview of the club’s financial future.

Manager Steven Pressly marked his first anniversary in charge last Saturday, but there was little cause for celebration. His team has won just three of its twelve league matches in 2014. While the Sky Blues sit eleventh in League One, they are only six points clear of the relegation zone and their form has a definite stutter. For the fans who stay away, however, on-pitch struggles are a secondary concern to the existential crisis gripping their club.

A Bleak Balance Sheet

The latest annual accounts, released last week for The Sky Blue Sports & Leisure Group, paint a picture of a club already in steep decline before the move to Sixfields. The figures cover the 2012-13 season, when the club was still playing at the Ricoh Arena. Turnover plummeted from £10.8m to £6.6m, while losses almost doubled to £7,155,140 from just over £4m the previous year. This happened despite significant cost-cutting measures. The wage bill was reduced by almost £3m to £6.96m, overheads fell by over £1m, and the club made a profit of £1.65m from player sales. Even so, a 27% drop in average attendance hit the bottom line hard, demonstrating the financial decay that had set in long before the dispute over the stadium reached its endgame. At least the accounts were filed on time this year.

That was then. The situation now is catastrophically worse. With average crowds this season having fallen a further 80% from last season's 10,973 to a paltry 2,287, it is inconceivable that next year’s accounts will show any improvement. Only Morecambe, Dagenham & Redbridge and Accrington Stanley have lower average home attendances in the entire Football League. This financial black hole forms the backdrop to a seemingly intractable off-field battle that shows no sign of resolution.

Broken Promises and Stalling Tactics

The club’s owners, Sisu, appear to be testing the patience of the football authorities. The Football League has confirmed it is still waiting for the club to honour the commitments made when it was granted permission to leave Coventry last summer. These conditions included paying a £1m bond and a sum of £590,000 to the stadium operators, ACL. According to reports in the Coventry Telegraph, these payments have not been made. The club has stated its intention to pay once the liquidation of two former company entities is complete, but this raises the question of why the League did not insist on the payment upfront.

A more pressing matter is the plan for a new stadium. This was a key condition of the move, with the club agreeing to keep the League updated on its progress. Yet Freedom of Information requests have revealed that almost no public bodies have been contacted. Eight local authorities, two universities, four police forces, and government departments like the Environment Agency and the Department for Transport have all received no contact regarding a new stadium. Only Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council confirmed it had spoken to the club. The club and its real estate agents, CBRE, claim that revealing a location is not in the club’s best interests, and insist the Football League is satisfied with progress. A League spokesman offered a less certain view, stating, “We are in an ongoing dialogue with the club regarding its plans to return to Coventry and will be seeking an update in accordance with the membership agreement.”

Scepticism among supporters is rife. It was mid-January when non-executive director Mark Labovitch promised an announcement on a new stadium site within three weeks, complete with a shiny graphic. Almost two months have passed with nothing but silence. The widespread belief now is that the entire new stadium proposal is a stalling tactic, designed to drag out proceedings ahead of a judicial review in a couple of months and pressure opposing parties into handing over the freehold of the Ricoh Arena.

The Unasked Question

The coming judicial review over a council loan to the stadium owners is unlikely to be the final act, with the losing side certain to appeal. Sisu will not return to the Ricoh without owning it, and the stadium’s owners seem to have no need or desire to sell. The prospect of a new stadium being built within three years seems fanciful at best.

This leaves a troubling question for the game’s governors. The Football League was widely condemned for sanctioning the move to Northampton in the first place, with its competence as an organisation called into serious question. If the club has broken the terms of that very agreement, the League surely has little choice but to act. A financial penalty would be a pointless exercise for a club in such a perilous state. Does the only appropriate punishment lie in further points deductions, or even demotion?