New stadium thread

Head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has weighed into the playing of a La Liga fixture in the US. He's quite right in saying that it shouldn't be happening and that home games should be played at home.......it's just that some clubs have more than one home.

It's just as well FIFA don't have anything to do with us using Wembley, Milton Keynes and Tottenham Hotspur ST/\DIUM.

 

FIFA wouldn't have a leg to stand on due to various national teams not having a set home stadium, most notably Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, South Korea, The USA of America and Australia. They can't say it's bad for Spurs to play three "home" games in different stadiums when (for example) Germany's first three World Cup qualifiers were in Hamburg, Hanover and Nuremberg.

 

There's also a variety of club sides who play big games at stadiums other than their main one. Qarabag are one example.

 

Chuck a bit of money at Fifa and they will allow anything.

 

It was just a bit of fun on my part regarding our stadium. However, I'm vehemently against the idea of Game 39 or any such rubbish. Fans in this country pay huge ticket prices and travelling costs and have games scheduled at inconvenient times in far off locations. Nicking a game off the season or adding one on artificially as a gimmick, would be a ****ing liberty. I'm not a ST holder but would be doing my nut if we introduced it in England.

The La Liga bigwig used MLS teams Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver playing in the MLS as a counter, stating that there's a Canadian national league they should be playing in, much as Cardiff and Swansea should be in a Welsh league. To be fair, he's got a point on that front. However, that's a bit different from La Liga having 379 games of a season played in Spain and then one solitary one on a different continent, 3,000 miles away. I hope UEFA and Concacaf vote against it because it's a joke and treats the real fans of clubs abysmally.

 

Les nomads de l'arse would have to play all over London

 

All of those teams play their home games in their own country, though.
Cardiff and Swansea's time in the English pyramid predates a lot of leagues and things like UEFA, too.
I see that they didn't mention Monaco, either. I can't think why...

 

From a poster on SSC...

"Was at a meeting tonight at Lilywhite House where MACE announced that the pitch will be laid in October. THFC are clear that they will not announce new dates for test events until they are 100% sure they can make those dates."

On the basis that the original intention was to lay the pitch about 2 weeks before using it, laying it in October suggests they're expecting to use it before Christmas. Let's hope that it's soon we need something good right about now.

 

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/...s-pace-and-workforce-reduced/10035254.article

Don’t know if true or not but wouldn’t surprise me tbh.

 

Very few sub-contractors will have thought that Daniel Levy would accept shoddy work and finishes. He sent 100's of tv screens back because the surrounding framework was a couple of millimetres too thick. The external tiling got redone and recently they put up bits of veil on the South Stand and then took them all down again to redo it. Anything shoddy was always going to have to be done again properly.

That article was given no credence on SSC. One of the informed construction guys who knows people working there wrote....

This is the second time that CN has run with info from a sub-contractor or other ancillary source and presented it as being of equal worth to the main contractor speaking under "anonymity". Sub-contractors are entitled to speculate all they want regarding Mace's or the club's agreed commitments during this remedial phase (the personal intervention of Lewis suggests this was still very much under negotiation only two weeks ago), but it is irresponsible of any journalist to then report it as "fact".

When serious remedial work is undertaken the effect on sub-contractors can be huge, but always varied. Some will be pulled tighter into the schedule, some will be put on hold, some on retainer, and some will be unaffected. And if the analysis of the remedial work required is time-consuming and/or the rescheduling of linears and one-off involvements temporarily problematic then the kind of speculation such as CN has just reported as fact is very typical of those who are effectively "on hold".

This is not to say that the main item of speculation - when Spurs take up their residency - might or might not in fact come to pass. However as speculation it is of little more value than much of the other idle and ill-informed guesswork that's doing the rounds.

Personally my own idle speculation is that the absence so far of a concrete alternative timeline from Mace or Spurs at this point is a good sign. It suggests to me that they have agreed a time limit for the remedial work well within that which would oblige the club to opt for Wembley for the remainder of the season, and have agreed not to second-guess that this time it will necessarily pass muster, though I imagine this time round having negotiated some clear penalty on the contractor's part if it fails. That's more or less a standard agreement in these circumstances and so far all indications are that the work is under control.

But as I said, like everyone else, I'm speculating.

 

I can't get access to the full article but The Telegraph are reporting that now the stadium's pretty much completed, the club is for sale with an asking price of £2 billion. I'm slightly torn on the article's likelihood of veracity.

The club's always been for sale. ENIC and DL have stated as much. So, it's not really news and can't be said to be totally wrong. Unlike most clubs that are 'up for sale', Spurs really aren't likely to be in unmanageable financial straits. Sure, we owe a massive amount of money but it's in respect of a stadium build,which means that Spurs could refinance and wipe out the debt without falling foul of FFP and well within Lewis' petty cash. So, no matter what our short term issues with completing the stadium, obtaining stadium sponsorship, NFL relations, competing in the transfer market, etc. there's no sign of an internal imperative to drive a sale right now.

Externally, that might be different. We received numerous offers from interested parties when we went out to the US to borrow £400m. Maybe there's been further approaches, maybe not? It could be that the recent 'issues' receiving such press attention has tempted someone to chance their arm and 'low ball' Joe Lewis. Frankly, they'd be better off talking sense to Donald Trump. This has always been a long term project. I'd be surprised if the club was for sale other than with an eye-watering price tag, to a very, very bullish buyer.

The Khan bid for Wembley could mess with the NFL franchise intention and we could sell to another franchise owner keen on a London move? Khan may be losing out re Wembley and have put in an offer to Spurs to mix things up? There's been talk of a potential buyer/additional investment for Chelsea and an American bank coming up with a value of £2 billion. This despite them needing to spend an additional £1 billion on a stadium, not owning the site and owing Abramovic £1 billion. Tottenham being profitable with stadium construction nearly done and available for the same price makes a nonsense of Chelsea's suggested value. Maybe someone at the club's been approached and was happy to stick the boot in to Chelsea by pointing out the laughable nature of the bank's Chelsea valuation compared to Spurs?

There's so much happening at Spurs right now that anything's possibIe and I think Joe Lewis/ENIC will sell or take a partner in the next 10 years but The Telegraph's suggestion that he's come to the end of his interest in investing his fortune in the club is laughable. He put in pocket change to buy out Sugar and has hardly invested anything but time since. Without a hell of a lot more, this is as bad as most of the reports on the stadium. File under "Highly Unlikely."

 

If we do sell..I wish the doom mongers amongst us realise that no Irving Scholar or Sugar types are going to pay 2 billion quid then **** it up the wall.

Them del boy owners wouldn't have a sniff..next buyers will be here to spend serious money in order to help us get on another level and make us a global franchise which makes crazy money ..having a top notch team goes a long way in recouping that money.

 

...and now the doom mongers are reporting workers at NEW ST/\DIUM were drunk and/or coked off their proverbial tits

I hear the club's legal department is hiring due to being overworked.

 

Bizarrely a lot of our fans don’t want a billionaire taking over and throwing money about though.

 

The next owners are going to have to bring something to the table that a man like Lewis can't. I can see 3 things:

• an NFL franchise - so a very rich American; or
• a short-term, money no object, individual. So, basically a crook or a despotic leader looking to launder their money; or
• a vastly rich, total loony.

Joe Lewis and Levy won't sell at a price that any normal business would see a return from. I think that they'll take on a partner.

 

Funnily enough, a lot of our fans don't want a billionaire who throws money around to artificially raise the club's status.

At some point somebody needs to sit down and have our fans say what the optimum amount of money we should be spending is...

 

Chelsea, PSG and Man City fans probably don’t mind.

 

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Every ownership change is a gamble as to what you'll be left with after. More are failures than succeed..

For all their money, Chelsea can't afford to build a new stadium and Citeh can't fill their free one. Both clubs have stadia full of plastics and tourists and have lost lifelong fans who don't recognise their clubs anymore. It's all a risk.

 

I agree to some extent but I’d swap the last decade with either side in a flash.

It’s admirable how Spurs are doing things and hopefully once the stadium is built then we can compete financially.

 

What goes up, must come down, that's physics. Me thinks the chavs have started their decent. Even the roman empire fell eventually.