Paul Clouting, Coventry City's chief executive has said he is confident that the transfer embargo will be lifted very soon. It was placed upon the club earlier in the season because of their late submission of their accounts and a dispute over loan payments to another club.
It is thought the dispute over loan payments is with Bolton Wanderers and concerns the loan from The Trotters of Danny Ward which was dealt with by Ray Ranson. The loan deal with Bolton stipulated that the more games ward played for Coventry City the less the loan deal would cost. The idea being that Coventry would give ward as many games as possible, but the winger suffered a hernia and required surgery which took ages to recover and the player never returned to the Sky Blues.
Clouting revealed to the CT: "We are already in conversations with the Football League and I'd like to think that embargo can be lifted very quickly, hopefully significantly sooner than a matter of weeks. Both of those issues have now been resolved and what we are keen to do is go through the correct process."
Inevitably the question whether newly appointed manager Andy Thorn would be given funds to strengthen his squad during the summer and Clouting was understandably cautious. He confirmed that three senior players who are out of contract in the summer, Westwood, King and Gunnarsson have all been offered new contracts, but admitted that finances are a "moving feast".
"It will be up to Andy to look at the players he wants to bring in to play the brand of football he wants to play and that process will start now," said Clouting. "We have offered contracts to three players this morning and hopefully those people will want to stay at the club and share the ambition that Andy and the club have.
"It's a moving feast. It was just over three weeks ago when I walked in and people were talking about doom and gloom about two things,
administration and relegation. Andy and his team have taken the relegation element out of it and we said at the time that we were secure until the end of the season."
"Clearly there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes to make sure the club is stable going forward and if you look at what Coventry City needs it is a bit of stability. We want to concentrate on some of the good things about the football rather than some of the darker things and clearly that's what we are doing."
Clouting reiterated what chairman Ken Dulieu said yesterday about the appointment of Andy King as the new manager saying that Thorn was the outstanding candidate in a host of high calibre candidates.
"We are delighted that Andy has accepted the job," he said. "In our opinion and it was a unanimous board decision, he has earned the right in the sense of looking at the job he was asked to do when the club was on the losing streak that it was, is no mean feat."
"What he has done is turn the team around, play some really
attractive football and get the supporters behind him. So in that sense he has done an outstanding job."
"When you look at the quality of candidates who put their name forward for the job, and let's be clear about it, this is a prestigious job in football, there was a good list of people who put their names forward, but he has done a great job and put himself in a position to be able to take the club forward and back to where we think it should be."
Clouting revealed that there were many applications for the manager's job saying, "I was handed a very thick file when I came in. There are always those who are outstanding on a PlayStation game and slightly less serious but in terms of managers who have done the job and been successful, there was a good list of those people who wanted their name put forward, but what we felt was with the job Andy has done and getting the players to play for him and get behind him, we felt he had earned the right."
Picture copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM