I read on another, normally very reliable Spurs site, that Donna Cullen has been directly quoted as saying that everything is on schedule. There's no actual quotation, unfortunately, but it seems to be genuine. That's about as close to genuine information as anything out there. At least, she would know, as opposed to the 'run of the mill' my cousin's, best mate's, milkman says.........On that score, a member of my family is heavily involved in the air-conditioning contract and is saying NOTHING.
I'm going to guess that, unlike the Daily Mail, they also know what the initial projected cost of the stadium was...
If you mean the member of my family? Yeah, Daniel's always ringing up to discuss it. He's very indiscreet......
In contrast to The Mail on Sunday's re-hashed and unsubstantiated article, here's one that actually quotes the club......and guess what? December 5 – Tottenham Hotspur have said that the construction costs for the club’s new stadium on the site of the old White Hart Lane ground are still forecast to come in between £750 million and £800 million, and not hit the £1 billion cost reported. http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2017/12/05/spurs-new-stadium-costs-forecast-come-750-800m/ What a ****ing surprise. The Mail are still running the £1 billion 'story' today, despite this and completely ignoring it. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, eh boys? Additionally, a regular poster on another site who has purchased Premium Seats and attended a viewing over the w/e says he was told then that the build is actually 6 weeks ahead of schedule.
Is it too much to hope that, if the stadium is finished on time and on budget, Levy's first action after declaring the stadium open will be to slap the Mail with a libel suit?
Not libel, but AFAIK there is a commercial counterpart for "fake news" . For example, if you published something untrue about the financial health/state of a PLC, and that caused a run on their share price, then you would be subject to such a sh*t-storm. The fact that THFC have had to comment ASAP on the Fail claims is proof enough that you cannot have morons talking financial b*llocks about you.
It was called Malicious Falsehood back in my day or Negligent Misstatement for the less intentionally harmful comment. It's almost certainly called something else these days. Most things that I learned are. Tellingly, none of the other papers that are pedlars of complete bollocks have gone anywhere near this. That tells you all that you need to know about this fiction. The newspapers don't like Levy but I'm pretty sure that they don't fancy a legal battle with him. If there was any backing to the claim, they'd be all over it.
I was chatting to this American fella on Twitter the other evening, who seems to be somehow well-connected to the club. I tried to recall what he said, but thought it was as follows: ‘Spurs will build a great, great stadium with a great, great Wall on the southern border and they will make Arsenal pay for that wall.’ Or I might have misunderstood him, as he did go on and on about it - in fact I’d say he was Wailing about this wall.......
Propagating false information knowing that it would impact on a Companies share price is a Criminal offence in most Jurisdictions. So in this case, the Fail continuing to spew forth these falsehoods after they have been shown to be such, would appear to likely be guilty of an offence, as stating that a company was going to run 25% over budget on a project on which that companies future growth is indelibly linked would appear to tick that box. Just can’t recall what Act & Section it might be.......
It would be better to make the Fail print a full page retraction stating that they were wrong and the exact cost to build the finest stadium in the country was £XXX. If NEC was used for the contract then depending on which Option was used, for instance Target Cost, there my be a substantial bonus for the contractor together with significant savings for the THFC if the project comes in 6 weeks early. I would anticipate something in the region of 0.5 -1M per day on an 800M contract over 12 months. Normally the share would be split 50-50 but the contract allows for the Client to specify it differently should he choose. If Levy has had anything to do with it I'd expect it to be at least 70%-30% in THFC's favour.
The Sun regurgitated the Mail's story last week. So that's two empty seats in the press box next season...
The Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust have today released details of the club's written responses to issues raised. It doesn't make specific when these responses were collated but it's a pretty good general guide that, vis-a-vis the build, as expected, things are progressing in line with expectations. As is often the case, the doom and gloom stories reflect the people peddling them, rather than actuality of the situation. For full details see.... http://www.thstofficial.com/thst-news/thfc-board-answers-questions-from-fans Points of particular interest to this thread 'How are we doing with the stadium' etc. It would be good to get a timetable of what will be happening when in respect of choices The Stadium is progressing and at this stage is on schedule. Key milestones coming up include the closing of the bowl and the raising of the roof. We shall be releasing internal photographs as and when areas start to complete. We envisage the sale of season tickets being broadly in line with the usual timings every season although we are considering bringing them forward slightly to facilitate what will be a longer process. Are works on schedule and is the club confident we will be back at WHL next season Elements are ahead of schedule, elements are on schedule and a small number of elements are slightly behind. Perfectly normal on a project of this size and complexity New Stadium - Is it on track to be ready for 2018/19? What is Plan B (Other than Wembley)? For instance can we play with a 75% complete stadium. It was always envisaged in the construction plan that it may be necessary to play early games away from home. However, it is too early to be certain. Given that the financial impact of failing to complete on time would be very significant for the club, I should imagine that all concerned are suitably, financially motivated to prevent that being an issue. Barring disasters, I'm sure that we'll be alright.
It would seem that The Mail have paid the price, in kind, for last weekend's article........ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/nfl/article-5067005/Inside-Tottenham-s-NFL-deal.html It's basically a grovelling love letter to Daniel Levy and the club, containing no new information whatsoever........but with the overdue clarification that, as expected, the suggested £1 billion price tag is not just for the stadium........ "The new White Hart Lane is the centrepiece of Tottenham’s Northumberland Development Project, a venture that also includes the construction of 579 new homes, a 180-room hotel and a community health centre.The original cost quoted for the project was in the region of £400m back in 2010. However, those estimates have more than doubled since and the development is now expected to cost around £1billion." ........there's also a very strong sense that this was written at gunpoint, at the suggestion of The Mail's lawyers. Stupid bastards.
Right now, the first enormous piece of steelwork of the upper South Stand is being lifted into place. I mean enormous.......... http://new-stadium.tottenhamhotspur.com/interact ....the top right feed gives the best view.
The frightening thing is that this is a huge, huge piece of steelwork that just disappears into nothing when looked at as part of the stadium as a whole. See at 1:42 in the second video. It's tiny there. That South Stand is gonna be BIG.
It really is impossible not to be hugely impressed with how quickly this building is coming together. Hats off to the project managers and contractors involved.
At tonight's fans' forum, a fan asked Daniel Levy....... "Will the stadium be ready for next season?" His answer..... "The stadium will be ready." No fudging or caveats....it will be ready. There's our answer.
