Coventry have announced their intention to build a new stadium on the campus of Warwick University, plans that would bring an end to the club’s long spell without a home.
The Sky Blues were promoted to the Championship this summer, a return to the second tier after eight years away. Now, 15 years after they left Highfield Road, they have confirmed proposals for a ground they can finally call their own.
Warwick University will provide the club with land on its main campus in the south-west of the city with Coventry responsible for the construction and operation of the stadium. They would also receive the revenues.
According to the club, a precise site for the stadium has not yet been agreed and there are still “many discussions needed with a range of partners to progress this project”. The news has still been broadly welcomed after a decade characterised by strife on and off the field.
Coventry left Highfield Road, their home for more than a century, in 2005 to take up a tenancy in the newly built Ricoh Arena. But when the club were taken over by the London-based hedge fund Sisu, a period of acrimony and uncertainty followed.
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The club refused to pay rent in 2012 and left the Ricoh to play its home games in Northampton’s Sixfields stadium in 2013. Wasps rugby club bought the Ricoh from Coventry City council in 2014 provoking a series of unsuccessful legal actions by Sisu, with a complaint over the ground’s sale currently under way with the European Commission.
After having been threatened with expulsion from the Football League due to uncertainty over their tenure at the Ricoh, Coventry played their 2019-20 fixtures at Birmingham’s St Andrew’s . Negotiations over a return to the Ricoh for a five-year period from next season are still to be resolved.
Dave Eyles, the chairman of supporters’ group the Sky Blues Trust, said he welcomed the news. “This has been a long time coming for the fanbase with suggestions [of a new ground] first being made by the club ownership back in 2013.
“There are still many hurdles to be cleared such as planning permission issues, infrastructure challenges and financials to be ironed out, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.
“It’s start to shine a light at the end of the tunnel. We are aware that negotiations are ongoing for the Sky Blues to return to the Ricoh arena in groundshare arrangement with Wasps.
“If the short-term future and the long-term future are both clear for the football club, the level of positivity would clearly increase. The majority of fans want to see Coventry playing back in Coventry as soon as possible.”
In a joint statement, the club and the university laid out their ambitions for a new stadium, though hurdles in terms of planning and funding remain. “Both the University and the Club are committed to a visionary, environmentally friendly stadium in terms of materials, energy, noise, building and of course access,” they said.
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“This will require significant discussion and partnership work with all surrounding local authorities, the West Midlands Combined Authority and the LEP [local enterprise partnership] to ensure the funding and support is there to provide that infrastructure.
“The Club and the University wanted to make people aware of this exciting new development as soon as possible and hope that in doing so, it will pave the way to many discussions needed with a range of partners to progress this project.”
