Yes, Zola, this is what the whole bleedin' thread has been about today. The only bit that worries me is the bit I've put in bold. Hopefully it's not true, but if it is, then we could well be in trouble.
Comfortably - I am not daft or niave enough to think that "things" don't go on at all levels and if Spurs fans believe their club is whiter than white all the time, they really are thicker than I thought. I honestly don't believe anyone would be able to influence anything for just under the 1,900 quid that was paid to her BEFORE the preferred bidder vote. You are talking about a half billion stadium and god knows how much afterwards. The other 18,100 came in the form of consultancy work AFTER the vote was completed. She admitted that she had a relationship with our Director and WHU have paid her directly from their to her personal bank account, hardly screams of cover up, does it? Levy is clutching at straws and he has got in to bed with Murdoch, not a good thing in my book, if Spurs hired these PI's then they are just as responsible as the people that carried out the dirty work, anyone thinking anything else is clearly either stupid, thick or in denial, perhaps all three? This is probably going to drag on, and while I don't have a massive amount of time for Spurs, it's a very, very sad day when relations have dropped to this level.
Have you done us the respect of reading through this thread? If you have do let us know if you have any questions. However if you're just here to try and WUM, kindly drop the pretense.
Zola - I don't think you have much to worry about so far with these particular allegations. But I don't think Levy is clutching at straws, and I seriously hope he is not in bed with the Aussie git. The application for judicial review is probably all he is interested in. He, and we all, want to see exactly what the basis for Wham getting preferred bidder status was, and whether the rules for the decision were changed after the bids were submitted. It probably won't change anything, but at least it will help to ensure that rules don't get bent to Wham's benefit. And I suspect it has already worked to some extent, otherwise why haven't you signed a binding agreement yet? I suspect that the OPLC now feel obliged to stick much more closely to the original rules than Wham would like.
Why do you think that Spurs hiring private investigators to look into anything dodgy going on in the bidding is a shady thing to do, IZWT? Regardless of any denials being issued and suspensions being hurled about, there has been some off colour stuff discovered. The OPLC may have been aware of the relationship between one of their directors and West Ham's Olympic Project Director, but that doesn't mean that anyone else did or that it was irrelevant. They certainly didn't know that she was working for the club and that she started that work prior to the bid being awarded to them. Yep, one of the directors of the OPLC helped West Ham to find a construction partner on a £95m contract before they'd won the bid... That's without going into the Newham thing and the past relationships there.
Surely they would need a construction partner on board for their bid, though, wouldn't they? If only to give some credence to the costs and timescales of rebuilding the OS? We are going to need a hell of a lot more dirt to cause Wham any trouble here, IMO.
No, they wouldn't and the construction partner wasn't found until after the bid had been won, as they payments to Ms Knight would indicate. 1 prior to the bid being won and 3 afterwards.
PNP - sounds like there is some info out there I haven't read yet. Do you have a link detailing what Knight was actually paid for?
Here's a link to a Guardian article detailing what West Ham claim she was legitimately paid for, those there's no timeline on the payments: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jul/03/hammers-sue-spurs-sunday-times I'll have another quick look for those.
Ta PNP. There's nothing new in that article, and I still say that anyone making a bid for the OS would have to have had the involvement of a construction outfit at some level, prior to making a bid, just for credibility. I'd love Wham to get horribly caught out on this, but so far the evidence is underwhelming. As I understand it, her consultancy started 2 months before the bids were judged, which fits their need to know how much their project would cost.
I'm sure that they'd have hired an architect and had some advice about what would need to be done and how CN, but I think that Dionne Knight helped them to procure a firm to do the actual work itself. Wouldn't you have thought that they'd have needed to know how much the whole thing would cost a little bit earlier than 2 months before the bids were being judged?
Zola. Surely Brady is in bed with Murdoch every week? She conducted an orchestrated campaign, in her "column," of disinformation through the whole tawdry proccess. Or doesn't THAT worry you? Guess not.
Without knowing exactly what Knight's brief was, it's imposible to know. But remember that Wham still only have "preferred bidder" status. No agreement has yet been signed, so they won't have actually signed a contract to build the thing with anyone yet (unless they are bigger mugs than we already think they are). Pure speculation on my part, but could they not have worked with an architect to get a general view of costs etc, and then, for the bid proper, invited a construction outfit to put their name to it as well. Honestly, whilst Knight and her partner are probably going to get rockets up their respective arses, the OPLC and Wham aren't really in any bother here. Unless Ensil's predictions of more revelations tomorrow come to anything.
LDL - I think, though, that getting a JR is all Levy wants at this stage, so that the whole process becomes a little bit more public. I agree that the decision doesn't look so unreasonable that a JR would overturn it, but it might look bad enough for Boris and co to think again. At the very least, it will make the OPLC wary of giving Wham any leeway in the final contract - so no keeping the running track for a limited time only; no demolishing of the complete above ground structure in order to fit in removeable seating; no ability to stop access to athletics if it doesn't pay enough etc. The fact that Wham still haven't signed a binding contract suggests to me that they are finding it hard to keep their promises. Or perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part.
Ensil - getting in to bed with Murdoch to sling accusations and paying PI's to drag up......Err 20K's worth of consulting work, in the face of a 14-0 Hammering when it came to the voting.....is a little bit different to Brady getting paid by Murdoch to spout her mouth of and from time to time, wind you lot up, which she does, because like so many you are hated. I really don't think the p0rn twins are quaking in their boots from Levy. Oh and WHAM didn't so much slip in to bed with them as were left with little option but to pull the covers over our heads and hope for the best. Talking of which, it looks a lot like to me that yourself and PNP are currently snuggling up? Comfortablynumb has written more sense then you two put together for crying out loud, I can just imagine the uproar if any club had dare try some kind of dirty tricks campaign against the Spuds, we would never hear the last of it. One day you will realise that Levy is taking you all for fools, your down a dead end, it's tough but you may have to man up and accept it, rather than playing silly little games because you lost the bid. But there again most of you didn't want the OS right? so you probably don't want all this malarky going on either, right? Oh and the Newham 40 million for those that spout off, they are securing a loan, not giving out the money themselves. It would appear that whatever is decided, the Spuds will not stop crying.
I'm probably in the minority to be more interested in the previously unviable NDP, that is now suddenly...viable? The Spammers have never needed our help to self implode...so why bother now, just leave them to it.
It beggars belief, that in commerce, for such a high profile commercial venture, and the time-honoured business maxim that *perception* of impropriety is often worse than the real act, that the "partnership" venture would have employed one or both of these individuals, for fear of precisely what is happening now. It makes them look like business morons at best, examples of the maxim in general, and possibly worse to come. I suspect that the Darth Levy drive on the JR is now the following : 1. Dig far and deep enough to force the politniks to offer whatever climbdowns they have to do in order to get the NPD back on the rails, within the financial projections originally defined (ie politnik ponces begone) . 2. Recover our costs for being a "straw man" bidder for a venture we were never intended to win 3. ensure that the running track remaining at the OS is effectively contractually bound for perpetuity. #1 is gamesmanship. How much (good/bad) is known by THFC PLC ?? Given the high-profile coverage of the FIFA debacle, various politniks (Boris etc) on the rack as the Olympics +/- re appointments/elections gets ever nearer, and the public scrutiny of a JR, their counter-argument better be watertight. #2 Jewish director of a PLC running a football club that wears its Jewish affiliations with pride. Trying to get its money back ?? I'd expect no less !!! #3 would be the icing on the cake. No ripping up the track after a couple of years, let the financial drain of providing it +/- telescope footie for the Spammers proves why Spurs wanted to remove the track in the first place.
