I know this issue has been raised previously, and discussed but having seen the article on the BBC site my Anger has flared up again. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21889864 So the treasury will contibute £60,000,000.00 of everybodies money, lending another £20,000,000.00, on top of a local council lending them £40,000,000.00 to alter a stadium that must have cost at least £300,000,000.00 already. So thats £120m of public money + whatever Boris puts in + the Costs of the stadium already including all the transport and infrustructure. Whilst the Hammers put in....... £15m.... thats all. Yes the LLDC gets a share of the "Profit" from a sale (in a ten year timeframe). But if the Chairman dont sell, or the club is sold in such a way as a profit is not made then WE get nothing more than £2m a year for 99 years = £198million. Who the **** thought that was a good return! £78 million pounds gained over 99 years on a £120m investment! Oh and not to mention the illegality of putting the Orient out of Business, or out of home. From the very begining this deal looked dodgy, now it just seems outright criminial.... in case the link doesn't work here is the text.... "West Ham will be anchor tenants for the Olympic Stadium after the government agreed to put in an extra £25m towards the costs of converting the venue. The additional money takes the Treasury's contribution to around £60m. Adapting the stadium could cost between £150m and £190m. But the deal was secured only after West Ham agreed to increase their own funding of the project by £5m, to £15m. They will move in from August 2016 and pay around £2m a year rent. Continue reading the main story “We will only go there if it is fit for use. I won't go there if I have to look over a running track. But I believe we are in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Let's face it - they've built a stadium, albeit the wrong shape and size” David Gold West Ham co-owner, speaking on 4 March Under conversion plans, the roof will be extended and the seating capacity reduced from 80,000 to 60,000, with a retractable system allowing the venue to be converted from an athletics arena to football stadium within days. Seats will slide over the running track to bring West Ham fans closer to the action. The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) will begin work on the roof in the autumn and officials hope it will be ready for the autumn of 2015 - in time for the Rugby World Cup. After that the stadium will close again to reconfigure the stadium's lower seating bowl and re-open in time for West Ham to start playing their games there in August 2016. Although West Ham were appointed preferred bidders by the LLDC three months ago, there were still fears the agreement could collapse over how to finance the transformation of the stadium. Initially the club had been reluctant to pay anything, but over time they increased their contribution to £10m and are now prepared to pay £15m. The rest of the money will be drawn from a range of sources, including London Mayor Boris Johnson's budget, a £40m loan from Newham Council and around £20m of borrowings by the LLDC. To guarantee the 99-year lease, West Ham also had to agree to pay a proportion of any future sale of the club back to the LLDC. Johnson argued that the move into the stadium significantly enhanced West Ham's value and that the public purse should share in any profits generated from a sale by owners David Gold and David Sullivan. In response, West Ham have agreed to pay a one-off windfall back to the LLDC if they sell the club in the next 10 years. West Ham say that is a sign of Gold and Sullivan's long-term commitment to the club. The deal will be a huge relief to the mayor and the government, who feared the stadium could become a major drain on taxpayers. As well as £2m-a-year in rent, the club will share catering and hospitality revenue with LLDC but it is understood West Ham will take all ticket and merchandising income. Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn is seeking a judicial review of the decision but the LLDC is confident that will not stall the process. Sources insist Hearn is contesting the LLDC's failure to do a joint deal with the Premier League team and Leyton Orient, rather than the decision to place West Ham in the stadium. The LLDC and West Ham will now work together to sell the naming rights for the stadium to a major sponsor. Initial talks with the International Olympic Committee and the British Olympic Association have begun on whether they can use the word "Olympic" in any future naming of the venue. This is thought to be extremely unlikely unless the sponsor of the stadium is also one of the Olympic movement's big commercial partners"
I live in Newham, imagine how i feel knowing my council tax is paying for this. Hopefully i will be moving soon
I feel for you! Maybe you should invest in a place in Sunny Tottenham before the stadium makes house prices shoot up! (maybe thats just wishfull thinking on my part ) I think legally there should be papers made open to everyone on exactly how the council expect to see a return on their investment. This is no small amount of money and I as the stadium is built and is not a regeneration of the area, I can't see how they make it add up?
Strange there aren't any headlines reading "West Ham receive £60m of taxpayer's money to move to an unfit for purpose stadium they will never fill" - the papers milked the horse meat non-scandal for weeks...
HBIC - I think after they sided with the Hammers bid (and slated the Spurs one - Even the BBC) they can't really backtrack. Everyman and his Dog knows the Spurs bid was more viable, offered a better return, was using private funding, was more likely to fill the stadium and was only going to destroy the stadium down to pre-organised levels anyway. Would have meant the Crystal Palace sports center & Olympic pool would have been given a much needed overhaul and would likely have meant Sheffield was still in operation imo. Whearas now.... Athletics has a stadium which it will not fill, West ham have on they either will not fill, or will be so cheap LO can't continue and have paid basically f all to be in. grrrrr
Spot on! In other words the worst possible deal for all concerned, except W.Ham and even for them it's debatable. What do you mean even the BBC, they are amongst the worse for bias.
Its amazing what those late night meetings with Karren Brady and some items from Golds 'other' catalogue can achieve.
Nobody listened to my suggestion for it... £250 for a stick of dynamite £500 for a pack of C4 £1000 for a bulldozer or excavator The British public would've recouped a massive chunk of the cost of the bloody thing.
My thoughts are recorded on several threads over the past year or two. No further comment on here as its not good for my blood pressure!!!
Agreed with everything said here. This is a massive subsidy for West Ham and absolutely nothing to do with the magic "L" word (legacy). The Spurs bid was the most viable and certainly in the best interests of the taxpayer, yet all we heard was how Spurs were some kind of destructive force as all they wanted was to wreck the thing when in actual fact the partial reduction of the stadium was already agreed! This says nothing of what this will do to the authentic local team - Leyton Orient. The government (in our name) are effectively subsidising another firm to put them out of business! Good luck to Orient in whatever legal action they take.
As much as i love Tottenham the club i think i almost dislike Tottenham the place the same amount, lol. Mind you, i live near Upton Park, so i clearly have very little taste
Isn't £2m rather a small amount for the lease? How much do other teams pay that lease their stadiums? Is there any other comparitives that people know of. In the megabucks world of Premier League football, £2m sounds like almost nothing (particularly compared to the conversion / refurbishment costs).
The only thing missing from this brilliant plan is to use more tax dollars to subsidize game tickets, and when that still doesn't fill the stadium, have a plan in place to round people up at gun point and force them to watch. Of course, I come from a place that had a referendum on using tax payer money to pay for a new stadium. After we voted it down, they used tax payer money to build the stadium anyway. Strangely--so very, very strangely--the city of Pittsburgh went tits up shortly afterward.
Have you ever been to Green Street? I can just imagine masked gunmen in the street shouting "GET ON THE TUBE TO STRATFORD YOU ****"
Vim, I can only think of City as a like for like in the Uk, But Juve (did), Inter/AC, Lazio/Roma and PSG (I believe) play in subsidised stadiums, so could maybe look into that?
And I am apparently deluded/bitter for saying the current saga is set up for yet another EC state aid challenge (finances worse than the first OS bid debacle) . I assume the Os have obviously realised this, and will drop the 'improper procedures' slant if they proceed to court.
Next thing you know Karen Brady will be sucking some Johnny Oilwell's dick in order to raise some fundsto build a football team. Still glad we didn't get the bloody thing though. Good bye Wet Spam, hello Stratford Olympic.
