Coleraine Chronicle - Sports - Is it a case of good Knight?

Sports

Is it a case of good Knight?

Thursday, 5 January 2012

LEON Knight could have played his last game for Coleraine.
Knight, who missed Coleraine's festive games against Ballymena Utd and Cliftonville, is back living in London after beginning the season living in Coleraine.
The club has flown the former Chelsea striker in for games in recent months but faced with escalating costs officials are reluctant to continue with this arrangement.
A club statement issued over the weekend insisted that the current arrangement can not continue and placed the onus firmly on the player. "When we agreed the two-year contract with Leon in the summer, there was no clause about us paying for flights. The agreement was that he would find a place to live over here and that's how it was for the first couple of months," said manager Oran Kearney.
“Obviously in October, things changed and Leon wanted to move back to London again. We tried to use money from our budget freed up by the departures of Parkhouse, Spratt and others, combined with the generosity of some of our board members, to bring him over for games.
“The way the flights work, more often than not it required an overnight stay and if we were playing on a Saturday and Tuesday, there would be further stays required. All-in-all, that results in us having to pay £1,000-£1,500 per month that wasn't budgeted for in the summer.
“I'm well aware we have a tight budget, this money was never part of our deal and to me it's not something we can afford to stand over for another year and a half. It was never going to be a long-term fix.
“The last flights we booked were for Boxing Day and with Saturday being New Year's Eve, the flight schedule created additional difficulties for Leon, so no flights were booked to bring him over for the Cliftonville match.
“Now I think we've come to a point where Leon has to be treated like every other player.
“If he wants to continue to play for us, it's up to him to make the decision to come back over here to live, or it's up to him to pay for flights and make his own arrangements to travel over."
The development places a doubt about Knight's future with the club and will inevitably lead to speculation linking him with other clubs.
Meanwhile, as Knight's future remains unclear, Coleraine welcomed a new striker to the club last week after former Linfield and Ballymena Utd front man Aaron Boyd signed a one and a half year deal with the Bannsiders.