John Haffenden is a decent bloke and a gentleman, I don't know the facts, but I suspect that it was his ethical approach to looking after his staff for so long at Shoreham and refusing to budge from those when the new mob moved in at Shoreham that led to his downfall.
Given what the new potential owners have allegedly said, if there's anyone that will give Coventry a decent chance of slowly returning to at least half of what it could be, it's him.
Running ATC will be a costly and major headache for him though, I strongly suspect that Marshalls (or perhaps SERCo) will be invited back for at least the first couple of years.
Marshalls had done a good job in putting the ATC unit back together after the upheavals of 2008/09, but there was still a long way to go.
The new owners would have all that to do all over again and a lot more to prove themselves competent in every respect to SRG.