kapowaz
Well-Known Member
The continuing implosion of CCFC (the business) is beginning to feel like the final few steps on the road to momentous events at the club. It seems highly plausible that administration, and with it relegation to League One, are only just around the corner. To this I say: at last!
I've not felt anywhere near as melancholic as most about the club's situation for some time. Maybe that's just distance and irregular attendance, but I think it's more because I've started thinking more about the bigger picture. It's not that I don't care about the club's fate, it's just that I've accepted for some time that not being in the top or second tier isn't the be-all and end-all of Coventry City FC. If we accept our fate and stop worrying about what might happen, maybe that will make it easier for us to plan for what happens next.
SISU no longer being involved in the club is a given, I think; they're never going to get what they want out of the club, and at a certain point they (as rational investors) will decide to cut their losses. Administration will probably come along with this departure, and with very few assets to speak of, there's a lot of doubt over what would happen to the club. Would it mean winding them up? Maybe. Would it mean the end of a football club in Coventry playing in Sky Blue? Absolutely not!
Football in England is, despite loud protestations to the contrary, in a terrible state. The Inland Revenue is starting to look more closely at the way that football clubs prioritise debts whenever a club goes into administration (which is technically illegal, given that it prioritises football creditors, players etc, over the many smaller companies that supply clubs). Accelerating player wages, multi-million pound transfers, the super-squads of the Premier League elite, new rules making it easier for big clubs to poach youth talent without fairly compensating players that invest in youth schemes, administrations all over the place, TV rights money disproportionately directed into the hands of the already mega-wealthy. The list of symptoms seems endless. In this landscape, I am less concerned with how Coventry City FC stays afloat, but more with how it remains viable in the long-term. To me this means a few key things:
One thing that has struck me with the phone hacking scandal (particularly from following the testimony to the Leveson Inquiry) is that almost no newspaper was innocent, and whilst a lot of focus was on News International, accusations were made against all the tabloids. The one newspaper group that has been able to hold its head high in all this is The Guardian, whose journalist Nick Davies did a lot of the uncovering of the scandal. Why were they innocent, when the hacking and otherwise nefarious behaviour of the rest of the industry was so bad? I put this down to the fact that Guardian Media Group, which runs the newspaper, is owned by a trust. The trust itself sets out its objective thus:
If you take this ideal and apply it to a football club, you could instead write it something like this:
CCFC fans already have some exposure and perhaps understanding of trusts thanks to the good works of the Alan Edward Higgs Trust. What I would like to see is a body with similar aspirations to act as stewards of the club from foundation until eternity. With the club's future in the balance, maybe now is the right time to get the conversation started about how we'd like to see the future of the club decided. Another group of investors (who have very little interest in the club itself, only in its potential for a return on their investment) rounded up by Gary Hoffman is not the solution. It might let us limp along for another couple of years, but ultimately they are looking for the club to reach the Premier League, then to take a big cut of the profits. We need a longer-term view than that.
I've not felt anywhere near as melancholic as most about the club's situation for some time. Maybe that's just distance and irregular attendance, but I think it's more because I've started thinking more about the bigger picture. It's not that I don't care about the club's fate, it's just that I've accepted for some time that not being in the top or second tier isn't the be-all and end-all of Coventry City FC. If we accept our fate and stop worrying about what might happen, maybe that will make it easier for us to plan for what happens next.
SISU no longer being involved in the club is a given, I think; they're never going to get what they want out of the club, and at a certain point they (as rational investors) will decide to cut their losses. Administration will probably come along with this departure, and with very few assets to speak of, there's a lot of doubt over what would happen to the club. Would it mean winding them up? Maybe. Would it mean the end of a football club in Coventry playing in Sky Blue? Absolutely not!
Football in England is, despite loud protestations to the contrary, in a terrible state. The Inland Revenue is starting to look more closely at the way that football clubs prioritise debts whenever a club goes into administration (which is technically illegal, given that it prioritises football creditors, players etc, over the many smaller companies that supply clubs). Accelerating player wages, multi-million pound transfers, the super-squads of the Premier League elite, new rules making it easier for big clubs to poach youth talent without fairly compensating players that invest in youth schemes, administrations all over the place, TV rights money disproportionately directed into the hands of the already mega-wealthy. The list of symptoms seems endless. In this landscape, I am less concerned with how Coventry City FC stays afloat, but more with how it remains viable in the long-term. To me this means a few key things:
- Stadium ownership. They need to be able to capitalise on all of the revenues such a venue brings in not only on matchday, but also through other non-football events (I find it incredible that the Ricoh Arena will be an Olympic venue, yet CCFC will see nothing from this).
- A nation-leading player academy. Forget being ‘decent’ — compared to the cost of buying premier league or foreign talent, a successful system for nurturing and developing young players is easily the most cost-effective way of creating a quality team.
- A board of directors who have a long-term vision of the direction of the club. And long-term to me means at least the next 10 years.
- Ownership by Trust. I'll explain this below.
One thing that has struck me with the phone hacking scandal (particularly from following the testimony to the Leveson Inquiry) is that almost no newspaper was innocent, and whilst a lot of focus was on News International, accusations were made against all the tabloids. The one newspaper group that has been able to hold its head high in all this is The Guardian, whose journalist Nick Davies did a lot of the uncovering of the scandal. Why were they innocent, when the hacking and otherwise nefarious behaviour of the rest of the industry was so bad? I put this down to the fact that Guardian Media Group, which runs the newspaper, is owned by a trust. The trust itself sets out its objective thus:
If you take this ideal and apply it to a football club, you could instead write it something like this:
CCFC fans already have some exposure and perhaps understanding of trusts thanks to the good works of the Alan Edward Higgs Trust. What I would like to see is a body with similar aspirations to act as stewards of the club from foundation until eternity. With the club's future in the balance, maybe now is the right time to get the conversation started about how we'd like to see the future of the club decided. Another group of investors (who have very little interest in the club itself, only in its potential for a return on their investment) rounded up by Gary Hoffman is not the solution. It might let us limp along for another couple of years, but ultimately they are looking for the club to reach the Premier League, then to take a big cut of the profits. We need a longer-term view than that.