Football club facing £4M meltdown forced to remortgage training ground

Football club facing £4M meltdown forced to remortgage training ground




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A championship football club has taken out a mortgage on its training ground to raise cash to help cover running costs.

Coventry City’s financial plot has thickened after the Sky Blues secured a loan in the region of £1 million against their Ryton training facility.

According to the Coventry Telegraph, Sisu, the club’s owner, used the only freehold property owned by the club in July last year to provide capital to help pay the bills and offset their annual losses of more than £4 million.

Records show that City took out a mortgage with Swynson Ltd on July 27 for the ten to 15-acre site.

The news comes after the resignation of Executive Chairman Ray Ranson, who it was said had become increasingly frustrated with the club’s owners.

It is thought that Ranson was left feeling disillusioned after not being given the tools with which to build a promotion winning team, having sold off key players, such as Scott Dann, to Carling Cup winners Birmingham City.

They also sold current Burnley left back Danny Fox to Celtic in 2009 and failed to reinvest the cash raised to improve the playing squad.

The sale of hot prospect Conor Thomas to Liverpool for a quick-fix £1 million was apparently the last straw for Ranson, who wanted to keep the teenager to build for the future.

Although Sisu have invested upwards of £25 million since saving the club from administration in 2007, which included a £500,000 facelift of the training ground in 2008, they are desperately looking for fresh investment.

To avoid having to continue to throw good money after bad at a club whose revenue streams are limited to ticket sales, sponsorship and merchandising due to the fact that it doesn’t own the Ricoh Arena.

The Telegraph revealed yesterday, in his first interview since resigning as vice-chairman, high-flying banker and life-long fan Gary Hoffman is also actively looking for a new owner to take over the club and buy the stadium, the Ricoh Arena, which is not owned by the club.

Coventry has failed to pay bills, including to their official coach firm Harry Shaw, as of last week. In addition, the club has been hit with a transfer ban by the Football League and is currently a month overdue in submitting accounts to Companies House.

 

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