Sisu To Remain In Charge But Won't Invest More Money Yet.

25 March 2011 11:25
Outside investment sought The owners of Coventry City Football Club -SISU have claimed they are committed to the club for the long term, but that doesn't mean they are prepared to continue to pour more of their own money into the club in order to subsidise the current losses running at about £4m a year.The club is in turmoil, not only is it losing money, there are board room divisions with the chairman Ray Ranson threatening to resign, their manager has been sacked, ostensibly because of presiding over a 16 game run with just one win and the club has had a transfer embargo placed on it.A statement was expected yesterday from the club about the resignation of Ray Ranson, but nothing happened, but there is speculation that there will be an announcement from the club later today.Mr Ranson has become increasingly isolated on the board as the majority shareholders strengthen their grip on the board room.Mr Ranson's allies, all Coventry City stalwarts, vice chairman Gary Hoffman and Joe Elliott have been removed from the board, Mr Hoffman resigned in protest over board room decisions to sell players as a short term solution to long term problems. Mr Elliott was made Life President of the club after he was ousted from the board.In their place came one Coventry businessman John Clarke, who was recently appointed vice chairman, and two SISU appointees Ken Dulieu and Leonard Brody.Mr Ranson is not part of SISU, he is a Coventry City shareholder in his own right. It is thought he owns about 20% of the club shares and if he has resigned he will stay on until the end of the season as a consultant. The speculation is that Ken Dulieu will become the Coventry City chairman if Mr Ranson does resign.Ranson has offered his resignation at least twice since becoming chairman, once over the board decision to sell Scott Dann and Dan fox in 2009, but was persuaded to stay by Mr Hoffman and Mr Elliott, but now they have been removed there is nothing to prevent Mr Ranson walking away from Coventry City a very disillusioned man.The only way Coventry City can make any money is to be in the Premier League and own a share of the Ricoh Arena and to get there the club need talented and quality players and by selling their talented and quality players to pay short term debts is not the way Mr Ranson thinks is correct.A bad situation at Coventry City was made worse ten days ago when the manager Aidy Boothroyd was sacked and was further exacerbated when it emerged yesterday that the club was under a transfer embargo.Just how long the club has been under the embargo is unknown, but it might explain why no new players were brought in during the January transfer window or why there were no loan signings made.SISU invested around £25-30 million in the club when they took over in December 2007 and have been injecting money ever since to pay wages and other bills, but now they have said they are reluctant to keep on subsidising the club with their own money and are looking for outside investment.SISU claim to be committed to Coventry City for the long term, but they will not place the club into administration because that would mean they would lose all of their investment and Sisu do not like losing money.If it came down to it SISU would be more likely to liquidate the club and sell the assets to recover their investment and that would be devastating for the whole City of Coventry as well as for the fans.

Source: FOOTYMAD