Ricoh Arena stand-off goes into extra-time

[dutchman]

The wait over the future of Coventry City has gone into extra-time with the club still refusing to pay unpaid Ricoh Arena rent.

Stadium bosses are still “considering their legal options” over the £1.1million rent arrears after the Boxing Day deadline passed for the Sky Blues to pay up.

Arena Coventry Ltd (ACL) had issued a statutory demand giving the club 21 days to pay or face a winding up order. The 21 days expired on Wednesday.

ACL – jointly owned by the Higgs Charity and Coventry City Council – has until the courts re-open on January 2 to announce its next move.

If Coventry City – owned by hedge fund Sisu – still refuse to pay, the club could be forced to put itself in to administration or face a winding up order.

It comes after ACL released a statement on Christmas Eve which said: “No agreement has been reached with CCFC owners Joy Seppala and her Mayfair-based hedge fund SISU over the outstanding rent issue.

“Arena Coventry Ltd is disappointed at this and will be considering its legal options and the appropriate course of action.”

The club claims the £1.28m-a-year rent is too high and had been in talks with ACL over buying the Higgs Charity’s 50 per cent stake in the Ricoh. Talks came after the club stopped paying rent ten months ago.

ACL offered to cut the stadium rent to £400,000 a year, have talks with a view to allowing the club to keep matchday food and drink revenue and to repay its £1.1million debt over 10 years. But the club claims average rents in League One are less than £170,000 a year and said it was looking for a new home.

The club has already been forced to scrap its season ticket promotion as a result of the legal action being taken by ACL.

Speaking earlier this month, ACL placed the blame for the breakdown in Ricoh talks squarely on Sisu, doubting they had any intention of accepting any reduced rent offer.

A statement at the time said: “The statutory demand gives Sisu a further 21 days to pay the outstanding rent lawfully owed to ACL.

"If they don’t meet this deadline Sisu must either declare CCFC insolvent or face a winding up order for the club.” Coventry City insists, while refusing to pay the full rent, it had been paying “matchday costs” which would amount to more than £250,000 over a season."

No-one from the club was available for comment on Thursday.