For a decade and a half, Coventry City was owned by the hedge firm Sisu, and now that they’ve been under new ownership for three years, FLW’s Sky Blues fan pundit Chris Deez couldn’t be happier to see them go.

Despite a 2-0 home defeat to Ipswich Town, the team has had an exceptionally successful year in 2025. The Sky Blues lead the Championship by eight points and might return to the Premier League after a 25-year absence.

But it hasn’t been that long since the Sky Blues’ fortunes were bleak. For 15 years, they were owned by a hedge fund called Sisu, and under their ownership, the club seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis, dropping from the Championship to League Two and even having to play their home games outside of Coventry on more than one occasion due to CBS Arena disputes.

“Complete disdain and hatred”: Coventry fans have no reason to grieve Sisu’s departure.

It’s been three years since Sisu sold up to Doug King, so Football League World spoke with our Coventry fan pundit Chris Deez to get his thoughts on their ownership of the club, and he didn’t hold back: “It’s very difficult to look back on Sisu’s time owning Coventry City with anything other than complete disdain and hatred.”

Chris is hesitant to take credit for the minor successes that did emerge during their ownership: “Sure, there were some high times. Bringing Mark Robins back to the club, and everything he accomplished over the next 7-8 years, was tremendous. It was a masterstroke that brought him back. But he was here before, under Sisu, and then left. He noticed the signals. I’m not sure what enticed and persuaded him to return, but I’m glad he did, and that he took that decision.”

And he’s delighted to credit Robins with making a success of his stay at the club, despite the exceedingly challenging circumstances: “They backed him somewhat financially. He recruited a large number of players during his tenure. He wasn’t allowed much money to spend, but he did bring in a lot of loans, some of which were extremely good. But it’s difficult to see past all of the dark periods, no matter how successful Mark Robins’ tenure here was.”

Chris is harshly critical of Sisu, with the troubles surrounding the club’s stadium in the forefront of his memories of their ownership: “They took us out of the city on several occasions to play our home games in other towns and cities, as well as other stadiums. That was embarrassing. It was arguably the most difficult moment to be a Coventry supporter, as you were continually in and out of court with the council and the London Wasps, who had taken over the stadium.

But his misgivings with their ownership went beyond that: “They practically never showed their faces. They rarely interacted with their fans, had fan forums, or did anything else. We never received any answers. We never got to answer any questions. They pretended they had nothing but contempt for the club and its supporters. They turned down very good proposals for the club. Preston Haskell was about to buy the club, but something went wrong. To get around some ownership restrictions, they once sold the club to themselves.

Chris explains that, despite being gone from the club for three years, what they served up is still used against them to this day: “No matter what good came from Mark Robins and the players on the pitch, it was constantly overshadowed by Sisu turning us into laughing stocks, more laughing stocks than we’d ever been before. Even this season, when we’re breaking records and flying through the league, looking almost certain to be in the Premier League next season, we still get comments all over social media, people taking the piss, talking about how we played our home games in Birmingham and Northampton and didn’t own our stadium for X number of years.”

Wrangles over stadium ownership and rent led to a lost decade for Coventry City.

Now that they are at the top of the Championship, it is easy to forget how far Coventry City had fallen during their previous ownership. They were relegated to League Two in 2017, marking the first time they have fallen so far since the 1958-59 season.

The return of Mark Robins dug the club out of that hole. Robins joined the club in September 2012, however his time there was brief, as he left in March 2013 to take over as manager of Huddersfield Town. He returned in March 2017, and less than a month later, the club won the Football League Trophy by defeating Oxford United, however he was unable to retain the team in league one.

The club’s stay in the EFL’s basement division lasted only one season; after finishing sixth in the table, they were promoted back to the Championship by defeating Exeter City in the play-off final at Wembley, and two years later, Robins led them back to the Championship after winning the Covid-truncated 2019-20 League One title.

But if Sisu’s tenure as Coventry City’s owners was marked by anything, it was the endless squabbles over the club’s stadium, which was then called as The Ricoh Arena. The stadium was designed to replace Highfield Road, which the club abandoned in 2005, however the Sky Blues did not own it. Instead, Arena Coventry Limited (ACL) owned and operated the stadium, with the team as tenants. ACL was jointly owned by Coventry City Council and the Alan Edward Higgs Charity.

Disputes over rent and control of the new stadium had a negative impact on the club. In March 2013, they were placed into administration after a winding-up petition was filed against the club for failure to pay rent. Before returning to The Ricoh Arena in 2014, the club played at Northampton Town’s Sixfields, 34 miles away from Coventry.

Even so, the troubles persisted, and the club vacated the stadium again in 2019, this time for two years at Birmingham City’s St Andrews Stadium. The Arena was sold to rugby union team Wasps at the end of 2014, with a contract disagreement at the heart of the second departure.

The sale of the club to Doug King in December 2022 and January 2023 brought an end to the continual disturbances and disagreements. Wasps had gone into administration, ceding possession of The Arena to Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group in 2022, and eventually folded. At the start of this season, it was announced that King had purchased the stadium and reconnected it with the team.

Coventry City are now back in the Championship, exactly where they were when Sisu took over the club originally. Under King’s ownership, the club is returning to its full potential. From 1967 to 2001, the Sky Blues were a top-flight team for 34 years in a row, and while remaining there was an aberration, they appear to be on track to return at the end of this season. It’s a far cry from the days when the team didn’t even play in their hometown.