No grapes involved. It should and is being looked into, I would say the same if it was us.
The cost of the Stadium being built and then changed to a football stadium has cost £700m. West Ham paid only £15m and UK Athletics paided £1m towards it. I have heard West Ham have to pay £2m a year rent, but then they get a £700m stadium for that.
It has cost £272 million to convert it from the Olympic stadium to dual use as a football ground for 11 months of the year and an athletics stadium for 1 month of the year, by rolling seats back under the stands to expose the track. West Ham paid £15 million up front plus £2 million per year for the next 99 years. It cost about £500 million to build in the first place.
A Prem team should be able to pay more then £213m over 99yrs tho...
I absolutely agree Fran, but West Ham won't even pay back the conversion costs in the next 99 years, and they'll get all the benefit. Non-West Ham supporting taxpayers won't get any benefit at all.
West Ham but paying more cash....
I think it was Leyton Orient, but whoever it was, a ground share would at least have made it available to more people. I don't know why ground sharing isn't seen as a viable option in this country when other countries seem to manage quite well. Inter and AC, Lazio and Roma, neither of which have fans who exactly get on with each other, all cope with it OK.
Yep, it was Leyton Orient. The club is quite fearful that they'll lose most of their crowd to the new iteration of WHU. I think they have a genuine fear too. Their case was completely overlooked in the court, and ex-Chairman Barry Hearn is now calling for transparency of the stadium deal, and I agree with him.
