Also the fact that piling has started for the hotel. One would have thought that was very secondary to the stadium and wouldn't need to be started until they knew they were ahead of schedule.
Just seen this elsewhere. It's the minutes of a meeting attended by the THST...... please log in to view this image Notably, there's only the three Bank Holidays when the site will close but no night working over the holiday period and that the roof and the retractable pitch will be lifted/installed January/February.
Fabulous drone footage from earlier today. The East Stand looks........shall we say, less complete than the West?
A very interesting article from Harry Harris of Zapsports...... Spurs will pull off one of the world’s biggest ever naming rights deals as global brands battle it out for the new Lane, I can disclose today. FedEx and Nike have been named by industry sources as major companies who have sounded out naming rights options. Spurs are declining to comment on the record and sources insist that is it far too premature to name any interested parties. One major global brand that looked into the naming rights possibilities told me: “We looked at it, but we understand that Nike and FedEx are in the running.” However, “it would be inaccurate” to name those two companies, insisted the club source. But it’s good news for Spurs chairman Daniel Levy that interest in a big money naming rights deal is sure to be hotting up early in the New Year. The club have conceded that construction costs for the new stadium on the site of the old Lane are forecast at £750m to £800m and, although not the £1 billion reported, it makes the deal for naming rights even more important than ever before. The new 61,559 capacity stadium is expected to stay within the club’s internal forecasts, in line with previously stated cost forecasts. But it was originally budgeted to cost £400m and in June Spurs agreed a £400 million five-year bank loan from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and HSBC Bank. Spurs have already spent £340million from their own resources “on the acquisition of land, the planning process, including a compulsory purchase order and legal challenges,” said a club statement at the time. The new £400m loan replaced a £200m interim financing facility from the same banks, of which £100m has been drawn down. While excitment grows as the new Lane takes shape and looks like being an iconic stadium, the club don’t want to suffer the problem of falling behind their rivals in terms of buying power and salaries, which are escalating beyond anyone’s previous expectations when the stadium was first planned. Hence the need to find a financial solution and the biggest asset to sell is the naming rights, with FedEx and Nike having explored their options to become the main sponsors for the new super stadium. The new stadium will be the second most expensive football ground to be built in the UK after Wembley, but certainly one of the most impressive in the world. Harris is very well known to the club and its management and the article is factually spot on as far as costs and financing are concerned. I would reckon there's a fair chance that there was a degree of 'off the record' club approval for the article. Either, it's close to the truth or we want it to be believed to be the truth, to get a prospective sponsor to commit.
Ask the man who is within touching distance of new WHL every 3 weeks, not the cheesy ball head glued to the webcams ...
Not being funny here but, how would you feel about your ground being named "The Fed ex" or "The Nike" stadium? I can't imagine Old Trafford or Anfield ever being named anything else, maybe I am just old but it's just not something I would take to.
The only reason Liverpool and United haven't done it, is that nobody will sponsor an existing entity. Your ground is Old Trafford as Anfield is......well, Anfield. It may have had more replacements that Trigger's broom but nobody's calling it The Nivea Bowl or Tampax stadium. Liverpool tried to get a sponsor for their new stand......no interest because nobody gives a.......White Hart Lane is a bit silly, we knocked it down in the summer. Whatever the new ground is going to be, it isn't going to be White Hart Lane. It's costing about £350 - £400m to build. If we can get most of that back by calling it 'The Nike Arena', then so be it. In the last 5 years, our net spend on transfers has been £2m. Not £2m a season..........a total spend of £2m. Call it what you like, if we can stop competing with one hand tied behind our back. Even United's owners are said to be baulking at the £750m cost of expanding. Chelsea's new stadium isn't just delayed. I guarantee they've gone back to the drawing board as the costs of developing that site are enormous [£1 billion and 4-5 years playing elsewhere] and they won't have the housing, hotel and other developments that are contributing to the enormous cost of our new home. Ultimately, football at that level is money......
That is probably because the Glazers are not trusted by lenders to take on the extra debt. Man Utd as a going concern will be more than trusted, but the Glazers would probably refuse to do a share offering to raise the funds (as it would dilute their ownership etc) . Such matters are what will make ENICs' funding of new WHL epic IF all goes to plan.
I suppose this sponsoring will last until they find a way to have wars (proper wars with blood and death) and fit them into a stadium and charge for the TV rights. Rather like the Romans did . That would 'kill' football as the crowds switched to watch the gore. Then the real football fans could get their game back and we could quietly rename corporate stadium back to White Hart lane.
It can't be long off....I see adverts for TV programmes that look like the viewing galleries from places like Bethlam. If we can so easily and unpleasantly mock those that society deems 'unfortunate', killing the poor bastards for entertainment is but a step away.
It seems that Everton can't build a stadium with an 'ambitious capacity' in a 'premium waterfront location' {Premium........in Liverpool?] for the claimed £300m. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/42525820 Oh, what a surprise. Apparently, costs have 'escalated significantly' and the club are "moving ever nearer to securing a significant proportion of the funding we will need to build the stadium." That has a fatalistic ring to it, to my 'corporate bullshit detector'. So, they've made a whole load of noise about something that's just not been thought through properly......if at all. It's the summer's transfer business all over again. Grandiose plans, where someone forgot to include the foundations. It's also a carbon copy of Chelsea's stadium **** up and it wouldn't surprise me if the true cost of building for Everton was also at least double the original 'estimate'. Chelsea have announced a 'delay' in committing £1 billion to building a new stadium [they won't build it as 5 years at another location will see gates back to under 10,000 again] and Liverpool decided to 'bodge it' and refurbish Anfield. Can Everton really find £600m to build a stadium when they've made no financial planning worth a damn to date and spend well in excess of 60% of their income on wages? They've sold the family silver in Lukaku and Barkley's out the door for **** all in a few days. I wouldn't give £5 for the rest of them. Just like Chelsea, I have real doubts that this one will ever be built.
These new stadia cost what they cost. The cost of acquiring the land, and then the construction costs. I doubt the physical locale of new WHL added significant increases to the total construction costs (London wage premiums etc) , as the build is effectively "essential" (hardly gold-plating anything that does not move etc) .
They've got some decent players there, but they've also got far too many squad fillers that just aren't good enough. Pickford, Keane, Gueye, Schneiderlin, Sigurdsson, Baines and Coleman are all of the quality that they need. Davies, Calvert-Lewin, Holgate, Kenny and Lookman are all excellent prospects, too. Their problem is that for every one of those, there's a Besic, Funes Mori or Martina clogged up the dressing room. Allardyce needs to have a bit of a clear out in the summer or even January, if he can manage it. Getting some of their injured players back to full fitness will help, too. Bolasie and Coleman have been big misses.
Whooops. I forgot Coleman, who is top notch. Siggy's a very good player and Pickford will be excellent but there's little there to indicate that Everton are anywhere near the CL places and if they build a stadium coosting £500m+, then there's little prospect of them getting in players to do that. They're missing the ground work that Spurs put in from 2005 to transform the whole club in advance of building a stadium to meet and support our realistic plans. If you're going to spend 3 x your annual turnover with no history of profit, banks are not going to be offering preferential credit terms. Even the Everton supporting Leader of Liverpool council might baulk at guaranteeing a £0.5 billion loan.
Everton need to create a solid first XI and then work on bringing through youth talent, in my opinion. They seem to have a ton of very capable youngsters coming through and they're far better than the squad fillers that they've got. A good striker or two and a clear out and they'll definitely be pushing for the Europa places, for me. Champions League's probably a step too far, but that'll be true for at least two clubs who can outspend them dramatically. Consistent European football until the new stadium's built is achievable and it's what they should be aiming for.
Absolutely, get your income up. Show that you can control your budgets and expenditure and can run a project of this size on a long-term basis with a certainty that the money will be repaid. Everton are a million miles from that place at this point in time. They want a new stadium, they could probably fill it but how are they going to pay for it? Moshiri's got money but not anything like enough to put up those kind of sums. He'll want to earn out of his Everton ownership, not be tied to something that's costing him over half of his personal wealth for the rest of his days. When the Commonwealth Games were discussed, there was a suggestion that the Council would pay and rent it to them. It's hard to see that now, especially after the Taxpayers' Alliance cost Newham residents £50m . Tottenham saved half the cost of the NDP out of their own income. Out of a £750m project cost, we're only borrowing £350m and have additional income streams to finance it whilst showing a capability to progress and make a profit. By comparison, Everton look like Bolton or Leicester who went into administration on the back of a new ground.
We have been a bit more fortunate than the goons too. When they built there's the projected amount expected from house sales on the old hibury site was hit by the slump and the amount of money sloshing around in the premier league (while a lot) was a drop in the ocean compared to now. They also signed a huge naming rights deal which has cost them millions as this area has risen massively in recent years. We seem in a much better position than after the disaster of the West stand fiasco in the 1980s. 8 years after it was opened we came as close as is possible to going under...and that was after making ourselves a PLC to dig our way out of the financial hell hole we jumped into.
