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ther subscribers top clicks none also available current news links on jb s scoop it football finance site general football management news is available from the business of sport management site news on the world cup and other football competitions can be found at the business of events management site jb s football management daily you can find an automatically generated free daily newspaper covering stories from those i follow on twitter and those who follow me on twitter by clicking here online no download no registration textbooks an extended list of recommended books relevant books for the thinking football fan meta create account log in subscribe entries rss comments rss posts tagged investors the stadium curse posted by john beech on december 3 2012 the topics of the stadium which has become separated from its club in ownership terms and the mixed blessing that a new stadium can bring are ones that i have covered in previous postings see postings passim the battle over fratton park is shortly to be resolved in court 1 the twisted history of portsmouth s financial ills and indeed its ownership ills seem to be moving towards a denouement certainly as a member of the pompey supporters trust and a strong advocate of fan ownership i want the trust to win the case they are not a directly participating party hence the quotation marks the case for a much lower valuation is a strong one and for once i m optimistic that the result will for once go the right way if it doesn t it will almost certainly mean the liquidation of the club and the fight to establish a resurrection club will begin in earnest no doubt nearer to home literally as i live and work in coventry if not metaphorically the issue of the ownership of the ricoh is almost as prominent on my radar its origins go back to the heady days when coventry was enjoying a notably long and unbroken run in the top flight dating back to 1967 and the managership of jimmy hill its then stadium at highfield road dated from 1899 and with a post taylor capacity of approximately 23 500 it lacked any of the facilities that a premier league stadium needed to compete from a business point of view it was not a million miles from fratton park to be honest in 1997 under the chairmanship of bryan richardson grand plans were announced for an ultra modern stadium to be built on a brown field site on the northern edge of the city close by junction 3 of the m6 and adjacent to the coventry nuneaton railway line arena 2000 as it was originally to be called was to be the envy of many a self respecting premier league with a retractable roof and a removable pitch making it ideal for other revenue generating activities such as pop concerts what could possibly go wrong well just about everything the brown field site which had been the site of foleshill gasworks proved problematic contamination of the site required two years of remedial work to make it reusable 2 the club was being operated unsustainably by 2003 debts were at a level of 20 million 3 and continued to rise 4 and rise 5 on the pitch gordon strachan failed in the battle to keep the club up in 2001 in 2002 it was only possible for the building project to continue with the formation of a new joint company arena coventry limited 6 50 owned by coventry city council and 50 by the alan edward higgs charity a wealthy local charity for children which has a strong sports interest sponsorship of the stadium by local car manufacturer jaguar itself under financial pressure fell through as production of their cars in coventry ceased 7 to cut a long and tortuous story short the stadium was built but to a significantly lower specification than originally planned capacity was reduced to 32 500 ricoh took on the sponsorship and championship coventry played their first game there in 2005 not that this proved a particular turning point for the club in 2007 a potentially club saving takeover by american consortium manhattan sports capital partners fell through 8 then having come within twenty five minutes of going into administration the club was acquired by venture capitalists sisu 9 although sisu planned to buy at least the 50 of the shares owned by the alan edward higgs charity this has not happened and the club continues to rent the stadium from arena coventry limited from the club s financial perspective the stadium is thus a monthly liability rather than the major asset and revenue generator originally envisaged relegation from the championship to league 1 in 2011 exacerbated an already difficult situation attendances and revenues were hit the agreed rent reported to be 100 000 per month became significantly unrealistic for a league 1 club to sustain again cutting a long story short the owners and club have been unable to agree a compromise rent that is realistic and the club sisu that is started a rent strike in march last year 10 obviously this is a situation that cannot run on indefinitely and in the last few weeks matters have come to a head with both sides apparently digging their heels in and maintaining collision course on the one hand deputy conservative leader john blundell says that acl may have to seek a winding up order over the unpaid arrears 11 while on the other coventry city chief executive tim fisher accuses arena coventry limited of pulling out of talks 12 whatever the rights and wrongs of the respective protagonists some compromise needs to be reached and rapidly as well as the two confrontational tales of fratton park and the ricoh there is a crumb of comfort on the stadium front at stockport county s edgeley park 13 where a deal has been announced that will see the club running the stadium at a reduced rent and retaining the revenues from it let s hope there will positive news to report shortly from both coventry and portsmouth share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading posted in assets investors ownership stadium trusts tagged assets investors ownership stadium supporters trust 7 comments so is it really goodbye bluebirds hello red dragons posted by john beech on june 7 2012 like the old joke about anti social behaviour in a lift what is happening at cardiff city is just plain wrong at so many levels the root causes of the problem lie in sam hammam s decision to build a new stadium the resulting deep financial difficulty that cardiff got themselves into with langston and the damoclean debt hanging over the club as a result and peter ridsdale s decision to involve the club in what was from the first described as a strategic marketing alliance with malaysian investors 1 as he said at the time it will be a long term alliance it will include youth development it will include the opportunity to explore the whole fan base it will certainly include sponsorship we are already talking to them about shirt sponsorship and stadium naming rights without any definite conclusions at this stage we are also talking about their assistance in trying to put this club on the sort of financial footing that we would have liked to dream of when i first arrived at this football club needless to say there was no public talk of the shirt sponsorship involving what has just been announced indeed as recently as 10 may dato chan tien ghee said in an open letter to fans wrote the new club crest and home colours which were being discussed were intended to demonstrate the symbolic fusion of welsh and asian cultures through the use of the colour red and the predominant featuring of a historical welsh dragon under the cardiff city fc name this would have been a springboard for the successful commercialisation and promotion of the club and its brand driving international revenues and allowing us to fund transfers and success locally thereby giving the club the best chance of competing at the higher reaches of competition this was not meant as a slight in any way shape or form on the club s traditions or history which we recognise are the lifeblood of any club it was intended as a positive change to allow us to adapt and embrace the future notwithstanding a number of rumours there were no further plans to turn the stadium red or make other radical changes 2 his use of were being discussed and would have been must have suggested to many including myself that the rebranding of club with a change in shirt colour and change in logo were now a dead duck a not unreasonable understanding as he continued in the light of the vociferous opposition by a number of the fans to the proposals being considered as expressed directly to our local management and through various media and other outlets we will not proceed with the proposed change of colour and logo and the team will continue to play in blue at home for the next season with the current badge he kept his word for less than a month in his open letter he also alluded to the current instability in the club s business model thus it is clear to all concerned that the club simply cannot continue to function and exist in its current state effectively losing large amounts of money each month while acquiring more and more debt no one can reasonably disagree with view in the debate that has broken out in the last couple of days since the announcement of the decision to do a u turn 3 or to use the language you might expect from someone engaged in a strategic marketing alliance following a comprehensive review of wider supporter feedback via email letters media coverage and polls run via the official supporters club and media wales and as a consequence of the above commitment cardiff city football club will also reactivate rebranding proposals with a view to exploiting and maximising its brand and commercial revenues in international markets attitudes seem to have become polarised into two camps on the one hand what is happening is a faustian pact which involves selling the soul of the club on the other the club s survival depends on a business plan that will result in untold wealth pouring in from new fans in the far east as is so often the case it is difficult to engage in debate regarding the relative merits of these two views because they are based on different meanings of the word club 4 the present attempt at debate assumes that these are two mutually exclusive and opposed views and that there are no other possibilities no room for overlap and no possibility of compromise that certainly seems to be the view of the malaysian investors which raises a number of issues in itself it suggests that the future of the club hangs on the fickleness of future supporters in the far east who a would support a club in a red shirt but not one in a blue shirt and that b providing the club s shirt is red and has a dragon on it they will support in sufficient numbers to pay off the rest of the langston debt reinvigorate the club s fortunes in both senses of the word and allow the investors to see a return on their investment as to a i think this is simplistic and over stated as to b i can understand the malaysian investors looking to the marketing success of manchester united but they might better have a word with balram chainrai or those behind the k k shonan management corporation 5 erstwhile saviours of plymouth argyle what is happening at cardiff is little short of seeing owners who view a club as a commodity which can have some brand value spray painted onto it to make it stand out from the rest a simple question to dato chan tien ghee if the key to your success lies in owning a red club why didn t you buy a red one if the answer is simply well peter hadn t got a red one in his briefcase to show us god preserve us others have tried this drastic rebranding with some commercial success an obvious example is that of sv austria salzburg which red bull bought and rebranded as fc red bull salzburg in 2005 complete with change in club colours and logo the new club has enjoyed considerable success since the takeover but the old club had also and that is where the comparison begins to break down red bull bought an already successful club and turned it into an even more successful one but in doing so they alienated fans to such an extent they started a new club which they called sv austria salzburg and which has already climbed wimbledon and fc united of manchester style from the seventh tier of the austrian football pyramid to the third tier i ll leave my final thought to the sv austria salzburg fans who are reported as having raised this banner in the past few days share this share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading posted in cashflow debts fans investors marketing merchandising ownership stadium strategy tagged cashflow debts fans investors marketing merchandising ownership stadium strategy 5 comments deconstructing peter lorimer posted by john beech on may 15 2012 peter lorimer s thoughts on fans being on the boards of football clubs 1 were at least as reported by the bbc somewhat confusing and even confused certainly his assertion that he does not envisage a member of the supporters trust having a place on the leeds united board is hardly a surprise given the way that chairman bates views fans 2 in fact it s no more news than would be david cameron announcing that he could not envisage an argentinean having a place on the port stanley parish council as lorimer said people put a lot of money in and they re entitled to run the club as they want i was reminded of the ingram brothers and their long running confrontation with the yeltz supporters trust 3 to many on the owners side of football s divide legal ownership is simply about the right to control and there is no recognition of the fans perspective of psychological ownership there are exceptions most notably that at arsenal where the notion of being custodian rather than owner has a long history but their numbers are few in other words lorimer simply pointed out that current owners be they benefactors or investors see supporters trusts as the natural enemy because they want to take over the company running the club as basil fawlty once put it a statement of the bleeding obvious what was confused and confusing with his comments were his attempts to add a rationale to the argument one that doesn t need to be there and in the case of his comments is a flawed rationale he was quoted as saying with respect to having members of the supporters trust on the board of a club for me it s never worked at any club and i just don t think it works on a whole scale i ve seen a number of occasions where fans have ended up running a club and it s ended in disaster i can only think of one case that i would consider to have ended in disaster which was that of notts county where the supporters trust was all but conned out of ownership 4 and postings passim another case that was not an unmitigated success was ...
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