Coventry City owner explores building new 40,000-seater stadium

The owner of Coventry City has been exploring the possibility of building a new 40,000-seater stadium for the club, the BBC has discovered.

Doug King, owner and executive chairman of the football club, has written directly to Julie Nugent, the chief executive of Coventry City Council, to ask about constructing a new stadium at the Butts Park Arena, current home of Coventry Rugby Club.

But the plans have been described as “unfeasible” by Jon Sharp, the chairman of the rugby club, due to the size and position of the site, just outside the city centre.

While a groundshare at Butts Park appears to be off the table, discussions around an alternative home for the Sky Blues once again raises questions about the club’s long-term future at the Coventry Building Society Arena.

The stadium is owned by the Frasers Group, where former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley is the majority shareholder.

The club’s agreement to play there is due to expire at the end of the 2027-28 season.

Under new English Football League (EFL) rules introduced for this season, Championship clubs will be fined £10,000 if they do not have at least a 10-year stadium agreement by 19 August.

The fine would double for each consecutive season without a deal and the EFL would ultimately be able to expel the club from the league if they did not have an agreement covering a whole season.

Asked about the possibility of Coventry City developing a 40,000-seater stadium on the rugby club’s land, Mr Sharp told the BBC: “Yes, it has been suggested.

“The problem Doug King has is that he owns the football club but he doesn’t own the stadium. He is having discussions with Mike Ashley and I think he wants to have an alternative up his sleeve.

“He did mention it to me and I said it wasn’t going to be feasible. That really is it as far as I’m concerned. We did not know he had spoken to the council.

“We support the Sky Blues, they are our fellow Coventry club. But we don’t think it’s feasible unfortunately and it’s not in our gift anyway, it would be in the gift of the council.”

Any move away from the Coventry Building Society would also need the approval of the government’s new Independent Football Regulator following recently introduced legislation, which would also require fans to be consulted over any move.

The council was consulted for informal advice as the relevant planning authority for the city.

The local authority is understood to have responded negatively to the approach about Butts Park Arena, which was made in June.

One senior councillor, who did not want to be named, told the BBC: “This is not a discussion the city needs to have again.”

The idea of the football club moving to the Butts Park Arena had been pushed by Coventry City’s previous owners Sisu back in 2016.

It was part of the long-running stadium dispute which saw the club fall out with the two previous owners of the stadium, Arena Coventry Ltd (a joint venture between a charity and the local council) and Wasps.

Both disputes ultimately led to the club leaving the stadium to play home matches, first in Northampton in 2013-14 and then Birmingham in 2019-21.

Responding to the BBC’s request for comment, a spokesman for the council said: “Organisations regularly approach us for confidential planning advice, though this doesn’t mean they’ll submit an application.

“With regards to Coventry City Football Club, the council, like every Sky Blues fan, wants to see the club secure its long-term future in the city.”

Doug King told the BBC he did not want to comment on the latest development.

In April, he told BBC CWR it would be “madness” for the football club to leave the Coventry Building Society Arena again.

Speaking at the time, he said he hoped that one day the club and ground will be under single ownership.

He said: “It was built for the football club, it should never have been moved away”.