SAVE our SKY BLUES

City, Sisu, rugby agents or anyone else if they back down from such a strong and public stance?

EFL

The English Football League have come under fire from City fans on a regular basis since they allowed the club to up sticks to Northampton.

They are now saying that City won’t be allowed to do that again, with club chairman Tim Fisher saying they have been told they must play home games within six miles of the city centre.

The EFL have the power to kick City out of the league - and this could be done at an Extraordinary General Meeting of Clubs on April 25 - which raises the prospect of the club dying - quickly or slowly - in non-league and we implore them not to do this in the event of no deal at the Ricoh Arena.

However, that would mean relenting and allowing the club to once again shift from its home city and, in all honesty, this is no real solution at all. It might keep the club alive but it would be on life support from the second it pitches up for a repeat of the Sixfields nightmare.

The move to Northampton was a financial disaster for the club and divorced it from much of its fan base.

Another exit would see another group of kids not joining their dads at their local club on matchdays, making it even easier for them to grow up supporting one of the Premier League big boys. Without a new generation of supporters, the club’s future is once again at risk.

How they can end this: Let the club leave Coventry if they can’t play at the Ricoh Arena, though this is just the least worst of two awful options with potentially dire consequences.

Likelihood to blink: It is hard to believe that club chairmen really will vote to kick a fellow club out of the league knowing the consequences could be dire.

COUNCIL For many people, there will always be a host of questions asked about the council’s role in this saga from the early intervention in the stadium project, the Tesco land deal, the 50-50 stake in ACL, talks with Preston Haskell IV, ACL’s role in the club going in administration, the sale of ACL to Wasps - much of which has been and continues to go through the courts.

The latest question surrounds the pledge that the sale of the stadium to Wasps would not harm the future of the football club. It is easy to envisage that nugget popping up in a court battle in the future but expect the counterargument to be that City had five years after the sale to build either their own muchtalked-about stadium, or a decent relationship with their new landlords.

We should all remember the council’s duty is to protect the interests of its taxpayers - and where these have arguably been in conflict with the interests of Sisu, the football club and its fans, the council had to put taxpayers first - and have spent £1million of your cash defending its decisions in court.

The question now is what can the council do to influence the current deadlock over the Ricoh Arena and it’s hard to argue that they can do all that much. They can plead with Sisu, Wasps and the EFL and they certainly should do everything in their power to lobby and facilitate a solution - but they have no decision-making role.

The bosses and elected leaders at the council must be aware that if this ends badly for the football club, the council’s role will come under renewed scrutiny and many of those football fans are also taxpayers and voters who will be in a mood to blame everyone involved.

How can they end this: They are not key decision makers in the current stage of this saga.

Likelihood to blink: Should be doing everything they can to help as this city needs a thriving football club.