Coventry City will take on Rangers at Ibrox this evening as Mark Robins’ side return to action for the first time in nearly five months.
Robins believes City’s opening pre-season friendly of the summer has come a little too soon, having only recently returned to training ahead of the new Championship season.
The Sky Blues are in Scotland to tackle the prestige friendly at the home of Glasgow Rangers on Saturday afternoon (5:15pm), but while Robins admits the timing might not be perfect, the chance to pit their wits against Steven Gerrard’s men at Ibrox, was an opportunity not to be missed.
Yesterday the club confirmed that they will play their 2020/21 season at Birmingham City’s St. Andrew’s after talks with Ricoh Arena owners Wasps once again collapsed.
The breakdown of last season’s negotiations came after Wasps Group insisted, the club say, on imposing an indemnity clause – a clause written into contracts to allow an indemnifier to take on any losses incurred by a party in the contract – for themselves and for a third-party.
That said clause, claim City, “would unreasonably restrict the club and SISU’s basic legal rights and would commit the club and SISU to underwrite Wasps’ and the third-party’s costs and all future damages” and that such a clause would have put the football club at substantial risk of going bust.
The Sky Blues say that this has been the stumbling block once again, to which Wasps deny.
In a late-night statement handed to CoventryLive, the Rugby club claim that, contrary to a statement made by Coventry City this afternoon, the football club were not made to sign an indemnity clause around legal action over the stadium.
Wasps say they believed to be close to striking a deal before talks sudden collapse and that they will “look closely” at the claims made by the Sky Blues and will make a further statement soon.
But for today it’s all about the football as Sky Blues fans prepare to feast their eyes on Gustavo Hamer, Julien Dacosta, Jay McGrath and Marcel Hilssner for the first time.
We will keep you update below on all the build-up as we get it followed by team news at 4.15pm and all the action LIVE!