Person on Twitter saying that the council should "enforce the clause that CCFC must be permitted to play at the CBS or the leasehold reverts to the council"
Anyone have any idea if such a clause exists & if it does why was it not raised before?
I wouldn't be surprised if this really existed. If it did, I would assume it would look like how NWW described it. I find that the "the stadium was built for us" argument is overused. Have CCFC ever owned the stadium at any point or has it always been in the Council's ownership? My reasoning being, I've never understood the argument that because "the stadium was bult for us (CCFC)" doesn't mean the football club get automatic and unrestricted access to the stadium regardless of ownership.
CCFC owned Highfield Road. CCFC was taken over by an owner who destroyed the club's finances and that ground was sold to pay the debts (a common enough story). The EU was helping the council redevelop the area around where the Ricoh now is (it was one of the UK's most deprived areas, and not much better now). It was, to my recollection, an old gasworks site, so lots of heavy metals and toxic pollutants in the soil. Tesco came on board to build a large store, and gave a lot of money towards the project. The council came up with the rest. Because of the state of the site, the stadium probably cost 3-4 times to build what it was worth. Even with other monies, what the council paid was 100% more than the value, and they tried to strong arm CCFC in to paying rent that was way too much to cover that debt. CCFC were between a rock and a hard place. New owners SISU were a bunch of sh#ts and so the deal was done, which CCFC then walked away from with a rent strike.
Yes, the stadium was built with CCFC in mind as the tenants. But they contributed not a penny. No more 'theirs' than a house belongs to the person renting it. So, not theirs.
The lease is between MA and the council. I am sure that whilst there might have been some planning clauses etc. about main use being sports, I would bet my last dollar that the council would be only too pleased to agree a change of use and partial demolition just to be rid of CCFC once and for all. Maybe in exchange for a gym/leisure centre/pool, because that area of Coventry has nothing like that at all.
Always a Wasp
