The takeover of a debt-ridden football club has drawn Coventry City Council into negotiations with a US business consortium.
Coventry City Football Club’s managing director, Paul Fletcher, has called on the council to support takeover talks with Manhattan Capital Partners (MCP).
The council has joint ownership of the Ricoh Arena, where the club plays, and MCP, which agreed to buy the team earlier this year, wants to include it in the deal.
Complicating the issue is the fact that the council runs the complex through Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) ¬– a company it formed with the Alan Edward Higgs Charity.
Mr Fletcher warned the number of individuals involved had led to complex negotiations which were now threatening the success of making a deal.
He said: ‘I think the way it must work is that people should sit around the table and ask how we can make it a great football club, not just for the fans but for the whole city. But while people are covering their corners and looking out for themselves, it gets extremely hard.’
The council has hit back saying it fully supports efforts to save the football club but warned it was under no obligation – or pressure from local people – to sell its share in the arena.
John McGuigan, the council’s director of city development, claimed no formal offer had been made by MCP, and any requests for information had been met in full.
He said: ‘On several occasions ACL has asked if Manhattan needed any further information – but the answer was no.
The council had no reason to sell its shares in ACL, but – again, to show its support to CCFC – it had agreed to consider offers for those shares, as long as the offers came from new investors who had already concluded a satisfactory deal with the football club, added Mr McGuigan.
‘It is important to emphasise the city council and ACL are not standing in the way of any proposed takeover,’ he said.
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