Simon Jordan believes it isn’t Mike Ashley’s fault Coventry City’s ‘mess of an ownership model’ has led them to be handed an eviction notice.

The Championship outfit were given the order by ex-Newcastle owner Ashley’s Fraser Group on Friday, and have been told they no longer have a right to play at the Coventry Building Society Arena.

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The Sky Blues are 12th in the Championship and are away to Reading in their first fixture since the World Cup break, but their next home fixture against Swansea on December 17 is fast approaching.

But Jordan – who had been interested in buying Coventry – thinks it isn’t Ashley’s problem that Mark Robin’s side could not have a ground to play in soon.

Speaking on Tuesday’s White and Jordan, he said: “Clearly what’s happening is Mike Ashley is saying to them, ‘Whatever you’re paying for this stadium isn’t sufficient. This is an investment, I’ve bought the stadium, I bought the 250-year lease.

“I’m prepared to grant you a license, a sub-lease, to be able to play football here, but it has to be on the financial terms that I want, not what you want.’”

Jordan’s co-host Jim White then asked whether Ashley is likely to buy the club now that he’s acquired the club.

“That remains to be seen,” he replied. “The ground is a commercial asset like anything else. If you buy a building and then you rent it and you make money out of it, that’s why you bought the building.”

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White then quizzed the former Crystal Palace owner on why he would buy a football ground and not want Coventry to play there, Jordan said the Sky Blues owners only have themselves to blame.

“He’s not wondering why Coventry can’t play there,” he said. “He won’t care if Coventry play in it. Coventry can play in it if they want to but he’ll charge them a prerequisite amount of rent.

“And that rent will go towards that capital fee of the margin he makes on buying an asset and renting it.

“The alternative is he moves them out, they go and get rehoused in a different stadium maybe at the University of Warwickshire that they’ve been talking about doing right.

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“He then develops it, makes it more of a hotel environment, a retail environment, a residential environment and then they find a solution that way.

“But it isn’t Mike Ashley problem or responsibility to make the commercial viability of the lease that Coventry City no longer have because of the 16 years of a Horlicks of something that they’ve made with Coventry City council, with ACL, so much so that they’ve had to play at other stadiums.

“So much so that it’s become so uneconomical they’ve had to move a rugby team in there that’s turned up the football pitch and turned it into an environment that’s very difficult for the footballers to play good football on.

“All of that has been made out of a mess of an ownership model that hasn’t worked very well.”

Ashley bought the CBS arena last month for a sum of £17million.

The 32,609-capacity stadium had been run by Arena Coventry Limited since it opened in 2005 and was owned by Rugby Union team Wasps, who have gone into administration.

A dispute in 2013 with the stadium’s landlords at the time saw them move to League Two Northampton Town’s Sixfields for the 2013/14 season.

They then returned to the Ricoh Arena at the end of the campaign, renting off Wasps. But in 2019 the Sky Blues were again homeless due to rent issues and were forced to play their game at Birmingham City’s St. Andrew’s.

The 2021/22 season saw them come back to the CBS Arena, but their return home wasn’t plain sailing even then due to the state of the pitch after it was used for the Commonwealth Games.

Coventry City are currently awaiting EFL approval for the club’s potentially exciting takeover by Stratford-based businessman Doug King.