Coventry City FC (The Bantams, Sky Blues)

Sooner or later SISU and ACL will come to an arrangement. Neither can afford not to!

Probably be which end to kick into first half!

I'm not so sure! Sisu want control of every £1 that CCFC generates and they say they need to own the ground in order to do so. That will not happen at the Ricoh as they will never own it. They believe, however, that they will still be in business after 3 years ground-sharing. Sisu seem to have burnt all bridges where ACL are concerned and the parties are both entrenched now. Plus there is a pending court case. The aim is a profitable business, and Sisu say that could never happen at the Ricoh. But my fear is that it is too far gone now to happen anywhere. The fans are all aware that the only salvation is for a complete buy-out of the club, Holdings and Limited, by a new owner who would also have to acquire the Ricoh. But Sisu won't walk away because they aren't willing to write off the losses yet.

Not necessarily. For tax purposes the "losses" can be offset against profits incurred elsewhere, even by other companies. That's the reason big companies pay no tax.

Funny you should say that, Dutch. I have wondered if the reason for all this madness is that Sisu could channel losses into the business and then liquidate it and walk away. The lack of a credible business plan is what worries me. Fisher & Co are very stupid if they cannot see they have driven away most of the fanbase already. But nothing they do seems to make sense, so there is always an ulterior motive.

This really sounds absolutely dreadful, for the fans, for the city, for football in general Where did it all start to go wrong? Was it Mr Richardson and his over-the-top plans for new stadium? Or was there another point in time where the wheels began to fall off? Does it go back to JHs costly exercise in the US? Or selling Ian Wallace to build a new stand? Or over-spending on transfer fees and wages in the PL at the turn of the century? It doesn't seem five minutes since I stood in a pub in Hove watching CCFC, led by Cedric Roussel, demolish Arsenal and become known as "the entertainers" - surely at that stage all was well with the club, so where did the downward spiral start and who caused it? And what happened to the millions poured into the club by the local MP? I'm not going to accuse anyone of anything illegal but . . . . .

MR, the club has been mismanaged for the best part of 2 decades. Remember that we sold Highfield Road well before the Ricoh was built. The money was wasted, then we had to rent it back. The money spent was madness, but at least membership of the Premier League ensured we had lots of TV money coming in. At the forum the other night Fisher was only too keen to tell us how badly the club was run prior to Sisu, and what a mess the accounts had been for years. No mention of their lack of 'due diligence', of course. And they have seen the club decline from one with an outside chance of getting back into the Premier League into one that will possibly be in the 4th tier next year. Successive regimes over the last few years, each worse than the last, have been catastrophic for the club. I would like there to be a full investigation into the club's finances since about 1995, preferably by the Serious Fraud Office. Then we would all know what has gone on.

Thanks Mr D - I'd forgotten about renting Highfield Road!

Having listened to Fisher last Thursday, I suspect he had too. Or, more likely, he didn't realise it happened.

That's a great point Mr D! I didn't listen to the forum last evening (I thought it might be just another repeat of the previous two!) but did anyone bring this up?

Latest news from the Telegraph : Coventry City Football Club Limited's administrator Paul Appleton has confirmed four parties have met today's final deadline for bids to buy the company out of administration. A statement released about half an hour after the deadline for "best and final bids" of midday reads: "Following today's deadline for Final and Best bids for CCFC Limited, I can confirm I have received four bids. "I will obviously now take time to consider these bids before contacting the bidders with my final decision on a preferred purchaser. "There will also be discussions with the Football League as part of this process." The Telegraph understands that among the four final bids is one from a company related to hedge fund Sisu-owned Coventry City Football Club (Holdings) Ltd. It has also been confirmed that another final bidder is US property investor Preston Haskell IV, with backing from former Sky Blues directors Joe Elliott and Gary Hoffman. North Warwickshire businessman Michael Byng confirmed he has pulled out of the bidding, but he insisted his Chinese investors are still interested in talks at a later stage. The Telegraph understands that Arena Coventry Ltd, which made an indicative bid last week, is not among the final bidders.

Bid accepted by Administrator

RIP CCFC

Everyone seems to be of the opinion this is the end of CCFC whereas I don't even understand what is happening?