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An offer has been made to buy Coventry City FC, the Telegraph can exclusively reveal.

We can reveal that a consortium of Coventry businessmen formally approached the club’s owners, Sisu, at the weekend after the Sky Blues relegation to League Two was confirmed at the Ricoh Arena on Good Friday.

That offer is understood to have been for significantly more than the £1 the London hedge fund paid for the club in December 2007 when it was competing in the Championship with designs on promotion to the Premier League.

Sisu said at the time of their takeover that the club's reported £38m debt would be restructured to ensure ongoing financial and operational commitments were met, and that resources up to the value of £20m would be made available.

The value of the club has clearly reduced in the nine years since then, given that the club has now been relegated twice and will be playing football in the fourth tier of English football next season.

The Telegraph has spoken to one of the investors, who does not want to be named at this stage, who has confirmed that the consortium is made up of local people looking to give something back to the football club by putting money in over the next few years to get it back to first League One and then the Championship.

In a statement released today, Coventry City chairman Tim Fisher said that the club had not received a "credible" offer for the club.

Former club vice-chairman and businessman Gary Hoffman has been the subject of intense speculation linking him with an approach to buy the club but when the Telegraph contacted the life-long fan he said he had nothing to say on the matter, adding that he feels it’s unproductive to talk about such matters in public.

Speculation over a potential takeover bid for the club was fuelled after Gary Hoffman and former CCFC chairman Joe Elliott were recently photographed meeting with Wasps officials at the Ricoh Arena.

Online chatter suggested a bid had been made, and accepted, by Sisu for the club. But, as the Telegraph reported at the time, those rumours were unfounded.

This season's League One campaign has been dominated by fan-led protests calling on Sisu to put the club up for sale.

Pressure on the hedge fund - headed up by Joy Seppala and Dermot Coleman - has been at an all time high with more than 20,000 people signing a Telegraph petition calling on Sisu to seek new owners .

Fans' frustrations with the owners have reached boiling point after two relegations, one administration and two points deductions under Sisu's tenure.

There have also been failed negotiations to obtain a stake in the Ricoh Arena and a disastrous move to take the club out of the city to play in Northampton for more than a season.

Attendances have fallen dramatically under Sisu, with the situation seemingly set to get much worse with a recent fan survey indicating a low percentage of season ticket holders would renew their tickets next season.

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