Advantage Ranson

Last updated : 23 November 2007 By Covsupport
It appears Advantage Ranson as the Coventry City take-over saga took another turn in its long and windy road with news that one of the people backing Geoffrey Robinson's bid has been struck off by the Institute Of Chartered Accountants.

The CT claim that Steve Ives, who worked for the financial firm Deloitte And Touche in London was struck off three years ago following a disciplinary tribunal which found that Mr Ives had obtained a Range Rover from a casino group and then tried to cover it up in the books of the City firm which is well respected in football circles.

Mr Ives always denied the charge and his involvement in a Liverpool housing development which crashed.

He told the CT: "Both incidents are irrelevant because they have no impact on what is going here. "We're merely backing the existing Board as an investor in Coventry City."

The Windsor Group were brought in by Geoffrey Robinson as a counter-bid.

Seen by some as an attempt to protect the dark secrets, Mr Robinson's bid which is rumoured to favour putting the club into administration has not been welcomed by many City supporters.

Two polls, including one on this site, have shown that the MP's actions during his twelve year involvement with Coventry City have cast doubts in supporters minds about his credibility.

Despite his being given the right to buy a share in the Arena at a shareholders meeting back in July, the former Chairman has not yet got the backing of the Alan Higgs Charity.

Their representative on ACL, Peter Knatchbull-Huggesen has already said that the bid from Mr Ranson's consortium was more developed and claimed that they had been "continual and very sensible discussions" with Mr Ranson and his SISU consortium and added that "if it has gone quiet, that doesn't mean nothing is happening. "We believe a deal can be done and as far as we're concerned everything is on going."

He admitted that there had been no discussions with Mr Robinson's consortium that he was aware of.