Just a year ago Coventry was hosting Olympic football and being lauded by FIFA President Sepp Blatter.
For world football's most powerful executive, seeing top-level matches there was "a source of great joy and pride."
Now the Ricoh Arena, just eight years old and with a 32,000 capacity, is a football stadium facing a future without football.
And the financially troubled team that had been based at the stadium is fighting for its future after 130 years in existence, predating the league it plays in.
"It's a dreadful thing and it ought not to be allowed for a city to have its football club to be taken away," Labour Party legislator Bob Ainsworth, who represents part of Coventry in the House of Commons, told The Associated Press on Friday.
"I want an investigation to expose everything that has gone on over the last few years."
Once a Premier League mainstay, the 1987 FA Cup winners have plunged into the third tier as a bitter dispute between the hedge fund that owns the club and the Ricoh Arena landlords escalated.
As they rowed over an annual rent of 1.3 million pounds ($2 million) to play in the stadium, the team entered administration and gained permission from the Football League to play home matches 35 miles away in Northampton, much to the annoyance of fans.
Arena Coventry Limited holds the keys to the Ricoh — and the football team's future. At a creditors' meeting on Friday, the stadium's operators blocked a bid by the club to exit bankruptcy protection.
As a result, Coventry's parent company expects to be liquidated.
"Liquidation poses the most serious threat to the future of our club," the Sky Blue Trust supporters' group said in a statement. "Where today's liquidation leaves our club, we don't yet know."
The immediate implication is likely to be a 15-point penalty from the Football League, which is starting its 125th season.
"The club will hold urgent meetings with the Football League this afternoon to go through the next steps for the football club," Coventry said on the club website.
The administrators had named Otium Entertainment Group as its preferred bidder to take control of the club from the hedge fund SISU, which has owned Coventry since 2007. That, though, was opposed by fans, the stadium owners and the tax authority, who are owed money.
ACL lawyer James Powell said Otium's proposals do "not give stability to Coventry," and the Sky Blue Trust urged authorities against making a "bad situation any worse" by handing over control of the club to them.
ACL, whose offer of annual rent of 150,000 pounds ($230,000) has been rejected, has concerns that Otium is connected with the existing owners following a "catastrophic insolvency," Powell said.
"It is does not seem a fair and equitable outcome," he added.
Ainsworth, the legislator who is a former defense secretary, has called on independent auditors to launch an investigation into Coventry's downfall.
At the heart of his concerns is how a hedge fund apparently "with no previous connections to Coventry at all" was able to buy the city's one professional team.
And that encapsulates wider concerns about football ownership in England and the financial management of clubs.
"The game is in a parlous state," Ainsworth said. "If you look at the history of football over the last 20 years there have been countless liquidations and administration events showing that there are serious issues that ought to be addressed.
"And I'm afraid if the Football League are not prepared to follow their rules and own policy with regard to Coventry (being allowed to leave Coventry) it has to be an indication that they are not bringing about the reform that in my view is absolutely necessary."
The Football League, which operates the three divisions below the Premier League, said earlier this month it was "reluctantly" approving Otium as preferred bidder and its request to play games in Northampton.
Ainsworth is demanding that the league listens to fans and allows them to take control of the club, as happened at Portsmouth recently.
"Football is the nation's most important sport, there are millions of people who are passionate about their own clubs and the game in general," Ainsworth said. "And they deserve to be well served."