better days
Well-Known Member
FOOTBALL | ROD LIDDLE
Rod Liddle
Sunday December 11 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
While Lionel Messi and co are busy giving the footballing-loving world pleasure out in Qatar, back home Mike Ashley has been spreading his own special brand of fun.
The Championship was back in action yesterday — in fact, there was one fixture last weekend that for various reasons I feel disinclined to dwell upon (Sunderland stuffed Millwall 3-0 — ed). Leagues One and Two have continued throughout the World Cup as if nothing was happening in the desert.
One of the clubs expected to be in the hunt for a Championship play-off place are Coventry City, who under Mark Robins have made steady progress since their elevation from the third tier in 2019-20, when they went up as champions. Sixteenth in their first season, an unflattering 12th last time out and one of the better sides I have seen playing my lot, Millwall.
All this against a not unfamiliar background of financial strife and doubts over where they will be playing their next game. In recent years they have been nomadic, spending a season nearly 40 miles distant at Northampton Town and another, in 2019-20, nearly 25 miles distant at St Andrew’s in Birmingham.
The problem is what used to be called the Ricoh Arena, their proper home ground, which they shared in a somewhat uncomfortable fashion with Wasps rugby union side, who are now in administration with £100 million debts. Coventry City’s owner, Sisu, has been in dispute over the rent at the renamed Coventry Building Society Arena and in any case attempting to sell up, to a businessman from nearby(ish) Stratford-upon-Avon called Doug King.
However, delighted though the fans may be that King is riding to their rescue, the deal may be hampered by Ashley, who bought the ground through his Frasers Group retail company a month ago, but has torn up the rental arrangement with the football club and told them they will have to pay more or get the hell out of town. Again. Talks are now under way with the ever-likeable Ashley, who is relocating the headquarters of Frasers to the city in a massive £600 million development.
In truth, Coventry’s relationship with their own ground — whoever has owned it — has been toxic for at least a couple of decades and the sad economic truth is that they are well down the pecking order of organisations with a vested interest in the CBS arena. Particularly galling, though, is that King wanted to buy the ground but was pipped by Ashley despite having offered substantially more money.
Coventry City’s owner, Sisu, has been in dispute over the rent at the Coventry Building Society Arena, formerly the Ricoh Arena
ALAMY
The problem is that Ashley had an exclusivity deal over the stadium and was able to acquire the property for £15.8 million — £4 million less than King had verbally offered — and having done so immediately sent out an eviction notice to the football club. They have been told that they can continue to play there under new terms — but only until next year and for a much higher rent. As you might imagine, there has been an outpouring of sympathy for Coventry on social media from Newcastle United fans, who now look back upon the period of his ownership of their club as a nightmare from which they have mercifully awoken.
One fan said: “Wouldn’t wish Mike Ashley upon my own worst enemy. Really feel for Coventry fans right now. MA will most likely end up buying the club on the cheap.” Hmm. I wonder if Ashley still has an appetite to run a football club after the loathing he endured on Tyneside?
Meanwhile, a division below, Charlton Athletic are in trouble again. Marooned in the lower reaches of the league and evicted from the FA Cup by League Two Stockport County, they have sacked their manager, Ben Garner, and appointed the former first-team coach Anthony Hayes as his replacement. Worse, their guitar-toting David Brent manqué owner, the Danish-American businessman Thomas Sandgaard, has seen his stock slump in the US and is feeling the pinch, apparently. He appointed his son to oversee the footballing side of the club, although there is no evidence that the lad knows any more about football than Sandgaard himself.
The uplifting weekly tweets from the owner have stopped, he doesn’t play his guitar on the pitch any more and he has ceased vowing that Charlton will be playing European football within five years (he has three years left on that promise, with Charlton in a more lowly position than they have ever been in their history). My suspicion at the time was that Sandgaard was a well meaning fantasist, but I’m not so sure about the “well-meaning” bit now: there has been very little investment in players.
The real problem in the cases of both Coventry and Charlton is that the club owner does not own the ground. And that further to that, football clubs that flog off their grounds to raise short-term capital are on the slippery slope to oblivion. And yet compared with that spectacle out in Qatar, the amounts of money involved are relatively tiny. A couple of weeks’ worth of Neymar’s wages would help Charlton out of their present hole.
Football
Plights of Coventry City and Charlton Athletic are warning to clubs selling grounds for short-term gain
Rod Liddle
Sunday December 11 2022, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
While Lionel Messi and co are busy giving the footballing-loving world pleasure out in Qatar, back home Mike Ashley has been spreading his own special brand of fun.
The Championship was back in action yesterday — in fact, there was one fixture last weekend that for various reasons I feel disinclined to dwell upon (Sunderland stuffed Millwall 3-0 — ed). Leagues One and Two have continued throughout the World Cup as if nothing was happening in the desert.
One of the clubs expected to be in the hunt for a Championship play-off place are Coventry City, who under Mark Robins have made steady progress since their elevation from the third tier in 2019-20, when they went up as champions. Sixteenth in their first season, an unflattering 12th last time out and one of the better sides I have seen playing my lot, Millwall.
All this against a not unfamiliar background of financial strife and doubts over where they will be playing their next game. In recent years they have been nomadic, spending a season nearly 40 miles distant at Northampton Town and another, in 2019-20, nearly 25 miles distant at St Andrew’s in Birmingham.
The problem is what used to be called the Ricoh Arena, their proper home ground, which they shared in a somewhat uncomfortable fashion with Wasps rugby union side, who are now in administration with £100 million debts. Coventry City’s owner, Sisu, has been in dispute over the rent at the renamed Coventry Building Society Arena and in any case attempting to sell up, to a businessman from nearby(ish) Stratford-upon-Avon called Doug King.
However, delighted though the fans may be that King is riding to their rescue, the deal may be hampered by Ashley, who bought the ground through his Frasers Group retail company a month ago, but has torn up the rental arrangement with the football club and told them they will have to pay more or get the hell out of town. Again. Talks are now under way with the ever-likeable Ashley, who is relocating the headquarters of Frasers to the city in a massive £600 million development.
In truth, Coventry’s relationship with their own ground — whoever has owned it — has been toxic for at least a couple of decades and the sad economic truth is that they are well down the pecking order of organisations with a vested interest in the CBS arena. Particularly galling, though, is that King wanted to buy the ground but was pipped by Ashley despite having offered substantially more money.
Coventry City’s owner, Sisu, has been in dispute over the rent at the Coventry Building Society Arena, formerly the Ricoh Arena
ALAMY
The problem is that Ashley had an exclusivity deal over the stadium and was able to acquire the property for £15.8 million — £4 million less than King had verbally offered — and having done so immediately sent out an eviction notice to the football club. They have been told that they can continue to play there under new terms — but only until next year and for a much higher rent. As you might imagine, there has been an outpouring of sympathy for Coventry on social media from Newcastle United fans, who now look back upon the period of his ownership of their club as a nightmare from which they have mercifully awoken.
One fan said: “Wouldn’t wish Mike Ashley upon my own worst enemy. Really feel for Coventry fans right now. MA will most likely end up buying the club on the cheap.” Hmm. I wonder if Ashley still has an appetite to run a football club after the loathing he endured on Tyneside?
Meanwhile, a division below, Charlton Athletic are in trouble again. Marooned in the lower reaches of the league and evicted from the FA Cup by League Two Stockport County, they have sacked their manager, Ben Garner, and appointed the former first-team coach Anthony Hayes as his replacement. Worse, their guitar-toting David Brent manqué owner, the Danish-American businessman Thomas Sandgaard, has seen his stock slump in the US and is feeling the pinch, apparently. He appointed his son to oversee the footballing side of the club, although there is no evidence that the lad knows any more about football than Sandgaard himself.
The uplifting weekly tweets from the owner have stopped, he doesn’t play his guitar on the pitch any more and he has ceased vowing that Charlton will be playing European football within five years (he has three years left on that promise, with Charlton in a more lowly position than they have ever been in their history). My suspicion at the time was that Sandgaard was a well meaning fantasist, but I’m not so sure about the “well-meaning” bit now: there has been very little investment in players.
The real problem in the cases of both Coventry and Charlton is that the club owner does not own the ground. And that further to that, football clubs that flog off their grounds to raise short-term capital are on the slippery slope to oblivion. And yet compared with that spectacle out in Qatar, the amounts of money involved are relatively tiny. A couple of weeks’ worth of Neymar’s wages would help Charlton out of their present hole.
Football