The clock is ticking and yet the impasse over the Ricoh Arena that threatens to leave Coventry City homeless for the second time in five years shows no sign of ending. It is a messy scenario that has the hallmarks of a children’s birthday party, a giant sorry game of pass the parcel whereby the club’s owner (Sisu), the stadium’s landlord (Wasps rugby club) and the city council stubbornly shift the blame from one side to another while Coventry fans wait for the music to stop. A 136-year-old football club has less than six weeks to find a cause for celebration.

Coventry have been set a final deadline of 2 April to inform the EFL board where they plan to play home games next season. If they reach that date without a satisfactory resolution, the EFL will convene an extraordinary general meeting on 25 April, in which they could consider kicking Coventry out of the league. In the event that 75% of 72 league clubs vote to do so, the club would face expulsion.

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Supporters are sick of the uncertainty, with a delegation of fans, led by the Sky Blue Trust, set to travel to London on Thursday to air their frustrations in a lawful protest. A coachload of supporters will visit Sisu’s headquarters in Kensington before heading to the EFL’s offices in Marylebone to relay their message. “We want them to do what they can to make sure the club stays in the city,” says Moz Baker, the chair of the Sky Blue Trust. “It is us fans that are the collateral damage in this and we potentially stand to lose our football club, either by a sudden death – by being kicked out of the league – or a slow lingering death in the event that we move out of the city again, which is looking the likeliest scenario at the moment. In 1987 when we won the FA Cup, there were 350,000 people on the streets celebrating. The club means an awful lot, to an awful lot of people.”

It is a sapping and soul-destroying time for supporters; there is anger and angst at how the club has rolled back to square one. It is a nightmarish situation but the fact Coventry was awarded the title of European City of Sport in a year in which its football team could be expelled from the league or even cease to exist is almost laughable.

The Coventry manager, Mark Robins, has been reluctant to get involved in stadium politics but said talk of such a scenario was oxymoronic. He has a point, given the city marked its new status at the 32,000-seat stadium at the heart of this bitter stalemate, when Wasps entertained Northampton in January. A statement said the Premiership match would signal the start of “a memorable year for the city’s sporting scene”. It must be hoped not for the wrong reasons.

Last Thursday all relevant parties congregated in Westminster for a meeting during which “matters were raised in an open and at times frank exchange”, according to the EFL. Jeremy Wright, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, who arranged the dialogue, has urged the key players in the Ricoh row to “go away and work together urgently to resolve the issue”. Until Sisu drops its long-running legal dispute over the council’s sale of the Ricoh to Wasps, neither the council nor Wasps will re-enter negotiations. Sisu says it will stop its legal action if it gets council support to build a new home in the city. All the while, time is running out for Coventry, who host Oxford on Saturday and have four home games left until their rental expires. There is a resignation among fans that a short-term deal to stay would suffice for now, even if a long-term solution is necessary.

Dave Boddy, the Coventry chief executive, has said the club has had to be “prudent” about finding alternatives to the Ricoh and suggested that they may have some wriggle room in terms of the six-mile radius of the city in which the EFL stated they must play home games. They spent 503 days in exile at Sixfields, ground-sharing with Northampton Town. Other clubs in closer proximity are Rugby Town, Nuneaton Borough and Solihull Moors. “The thought of moving out of Coventry again leaves me and a lot of City fans with dread,” Baker says. “We have had it before and it was an absolute disaster for the football club and the city. I don’t know how the club will survive with no real prospect of moving back to the city. There would just be so many disheartened supporters.”

Robins has tried to steer clear of the stadium saga but compared the uncertainty to how Brexit has conjured more questions than answers. On the pitch Coventry have made extremely impressive strides under Robins, with victory at Peterborough last weekend a fifth in seven matches and the team a point off the League One play-offs. The defender Dom Hyam and the classy teenager Tom Bayliss have impressed. “Some people are genuinely talking about the Championship,” Baker says. “Then you have this parallel universe where we might not even be playing next season.”

Baker describes how one elderly lady, who travels home and away to watch Coventry, was reduced to tears over the uncertainty. “For a lot of people it is a way of life. And it has dragged on so long now. It still does not feel any closer to resolution but it feels like this could ultimately now be terminal. Things on the playing side have improved but that counts for nothing if this off-the-field business continues and we haven’t got a home for Coventry. It is a horrible thought. It is really a bizarre feeling.”

Talking points

• At least mid-table League One clubs cannot say they have nothing to play for. The bottom of the division is so tight – three points separate 12th-placed Plymouth and 21st-placed Walsall, who occupy a relegation spot – that no players can afford to be winding down with eight games to play. In-form AFC Wimbledon are two places off the foot of the table but only six points off 13th-placed Bristol Rovers, who have won three of their past four matches.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest AFC Wimbledon’s win at Southend enhanced their chances of escaping relegation from League One. Photograph: Matthew Redman/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock

• An independent hearing into Birmingham City’s breach of the EFL’s profit and sustainability rules commenced on Monday, with both parties awaiting a decision from the panel. The EFL took a dim view of Birmingham ignoring a transfer embargo by signing Kristian Pedersen for £2m and have recommended an undisclosed sanction. The commission could, however, determine its own course of action against the Championship club.

• The Swindon winger Matt Taylor has announced he will retire at the end of the season. The former Portsmouth and Bolton midfielder is a player-coach at the League Two club. He made his senior debut at Luton and also played for West Ham, Burnley and Northampton in a 20-year career.