How Coventry City Football Club has finally ended its 25-year stadium saga

Coventry City fans have asked one question repeatedly over the past two decades, ‘How did this happen?’

The subject of the question was the Sky Blues stadium saga – involving the Coventry Building Society Arena (formerly the Ricoh Arena) – and the subsequent moves away from the football club’s home city.

As the years went on, more and more people asked the same question, including league officials, journalists, Supreme Court judges and even MPs in the House of Commons.

But, in the end, it took just one person asking one question to draw a line under two decades of uncertainty – when Coventry City’s latest owner, Doug King, asked billionaire businessman and stadium owner Mike Ashley, ‘How much?’

A deal was announced on Saturday ahead of the club’s 7-1 win in the CBS Arena , which it now owns, and where fans are dreaming of a return to the Premier League.

The journey to that moment began in 1997 when the then Coventry City chairman, Bryan Richardson, unveiled his vision for a multipurpose arena, known as Arena 2000, that would generate revenue for the football club outside of match days.

The club sold their previous home ground of Highfield Road in 1999, beginning a 25-year period of effective homelessness for the Sky Blues.

After leasing the home ground back from the construction firm while waiting for the new stadium to be completed, disaster struck when the club was relegated from the Premier League in 2001.

Not only did the riches of the league evaporate in the pre-parachute payment era, the collapse of ITV Digital meant TV rights money also disappeared and the club could no longer afford to build the stadium.

Coventry City Council and The Alan Edward Higgs Charity ultimately stepped in and formed a 50/50 partnership, known as Arena Coventry Limited (ACL), the company which then became the first owner of the Ricoh Arena when it opened in 2005.

When the club moved to the stadium the same year, the financial problems only increased.

However, reprieve came when Sisu Capital bought the club in 2007, with the Sky Blues just minutes away from entering administration.

Decline followed on and off the pitch in the following years. First, relegation to League One in 2012 before things came to a head in 2013 over the £1.3m annual rent the club was paying to play at the stadium.

That dispute led to the club leaving Coventry to play home matches at Sixfields Stadium in Northampton. Bitter legal disputes followed between the stadium company and Sisu, with the latter announcing its intention to build a new home ground, dubbed ‘Highfield Road II’.

On the pitch, things were turning around following the club’s relegation to the bottom tier of English Football in 2017.

The appointment of Mark Robins as manager, and a Football League Trophy win that same season, sparked a resurgence which ultimately saw the Sky Blues return to the Championship in 2020 as League One Champions.

Another new stadium plan emerged during this time via the announcement of a partnership with Warwick University to build a new stadium and academy complex.

Again, following the announcement, little progress was evidenced.

In 2021, as Wasps struggled for funds, Coventry City were allowed to return to the Arena. But the rugby club ultimately collapsed, leaving Mike Ashley’s Fraser’s Group to sweep in and secure the stadium for £17m in 2022.

Doug King took over the club in November 2022, just hours before Mike Ashley was due to secure the stadium at a court hearing in London. He submitted a late bid of £25m to the court, but the judge ruled it had effectively been submitted too late.

It seemed like history could be about to repeat itself when the BBC discovered in July that Doug King had explored the possibility of building a new 40,000 seater stadium in the city.

Some suspected that was a negotiating tactic, while others felt it was a sensible contingency plan. But what we know now is that, weeks later, Doug King would pull off a deal that had seemed impossible for the past 25 years.

Coventry City – finally – owns its own stadium.