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McGrath was, and remains, my absolute hero. The definitive midfield destroyer; extremely disciplined, incredibly fit, and utterly fearless. And he did it all at the top level of English football, holding his own against some very good players. With all respect to Clarke, whom I've seen stick...

They're not just set up to support deprived children - read again. The objects of the Charity are: (a) Such charitable purposes as the Trustees may select which shall benefit wholly or mainly the inhabitants of the area within 25 miles of the centre of Coventry; Presumably supporting the...

Erm... ACL never paid a dividend. I can't see that the Higgs trust have made a penny out of the Arena. When they did bail CCFC out, and covered off the half of ACL that the club couldn't afford to buy, they still put in place a formula so that the club could purchase it back at a reasonable...

They would liquidate the club rather than sell it? What an odd thing to do. They can dump all of their debt in the club, go into administration, and still sell the club and make a few bob. These are people that would push their grannies over for a fiver - do you think they're daft enough to...

If you're pretty stupid, then yes I guess it is. Apart from the stuff that actually breaks the law. Ultimately though, if you stitch enough people up, then no one trusts you and you end up out of business. Hmm, there's a thought eh.... Anyway, if CCC call in the loan, it just means that the...

It's pretty huge if you don't have a purchaser willing to buy. Answer the question mate. I've answered yours. When did SISU ever propose buying ACL.

You seem very taken in by Timmy. I'm sure it could be sold, if the price was right and the owner willing to sell. But the council doesn't own ACL, which is something that you and O'Connor overlooked, and SISU couldn't even negotiate the much more straightforward purchase of the Higgs share of...

Ms Sinclaire said no more taxpayers money should be wasted on the Ricoh saga. I agree, so why waste money on a valuation when the other side wants something you can't offer (the unencumbered freehold). No more taxpayers money should be wasted on Ms Sinclaire. Councillors and Council Officers...

Really. Have they ever said that? When? Where?

It's not a smokescreen - it's a contract. And it's a complex contract with a number of layers in the form of those sub-leases, to go back to the OP. Tim & Labo pretending that it can simply be ignored, and a deal magically done for the whole Ricoh unecumbered, now that is a smokescreen. Not...

Appreciate what you're saying, but I still don't think £1.2m was an extortionate rent for a £50/60m stadium. An interest only loan for that amount would probably have been at least as much if not higher. The enormous error was selling the income streams, but by then we were so against the wall...

Me too, Jack - me too. The bitter irony, if the council hadn't got involved then maybe we'd still be at HR and in a much better place. (Although we'd obviously would either have been renting it at £1m/season (iirc), or trying to buy back the freehold from a private developer, having sold it...

I'd agree with most of this except the 'took advantage' part. The council paid for the land, and built the stadium. Then they offered fifty percent of it back to the club at a frankly remarkable price. The club both sold that 50%, and the rights to the income streams. And now they seem to...

It's not just the sub-leases. There's the not insignificant fact of the 40+ year lease that ACL hold. ACL aren't the Council. If the Council broke the lease, ACL could sue the Council.

Apologies, but no, the council can't dissolve ACL. They do not have a controlling interest, and ACL is a separate legal entity. If the Council and Higgs agreed to wind up ACL, I suppose it could happen. Why would they though, both parties have a significant investment in what is supposedly a...

Bingo. That's as good an explanation of it as I've seen anywhere. As expected, it's turned out not just to be about the freehold. It's now about the 'unencumbered' freehold - i.e. the council would have to break the lease with ACL, or somehow wind ACL up. Neither of those things is possible...

The key part of this, to my mind, is that CCFC never bought the land - just the option to buy the land. That option was about to expire when the council stepped in. Why did it need to step in? Because CCFC ran out of money. If the council didn't step in the whole thing dies before it's...

You're quite right in one respect, valuations of this type don't come cheap. I don't see why the Council need to do one though. They've invited bids, prospective purchasers are presumably free to conduct their own valuations and make an offer. The ball is in SISU's court now. The council...

Entirely possible that Clarke's half-brother is Chinese. One in five people in the world are Chinese. And there are five people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either my mum or my dad. Or my older brother Colin. Or my younger brother Ho Cha Chu. I think it's Colin. :) With...

Just to go back to the planning issues for Exhall. SISU's project is ultimately for a 25,000 seater-stadium, so presumably they'll want to make sure that they get planning permission for something that size. In itself, that makes things harder. Worse though, far worse than that, they've said...