The whole situation is ridiculous. If West Ham don't make it straight back into the Prem - and stay there, something they have never managed to do for very long. What the hell are they going to do with it anyway?
More wasted time and effort by Levy and our board. Do they cut their losses now or take this to the High Court?
Yeah. Ensil's right. Levy will undoubtedly talk to his lawyers to gauge what the realistic chances are of success, should he decide to take it further.
It is a futile fight. The OPLC will never admit they have made the wrong decision (and they broke no laws coming to that decision.) It would have been a good option financially (I know we fans are divided on it,) but the Edmonton option seems to make far more sense and tick more boxes. I think we should leave the Spammers with enough rope to hang themselves.
It certainly makes more sense than giving a vast stadium to a team who can't even be sure of Premiership status.
I really didn't want the club to move to Stratford, so I'm glad that it's not going to happen, but the whole thing stunk. There were far too many irregularities leading up to the totally unanimous decision. I'm not sure how either club wasn't breaking the rules by moving so close to Orient, either.
An attempt by Tottenham and Leyton Orient to obtain a judicial review of West Ham's proposed move to the Olympic Stadium has been rejected in the High Court. The two clubs decided to challenge the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) after they decided to make the Hammers their first choice to make the £486m stadium they new home after the London 2012 Games. Mr Justice Davis rejected the application, but neither Spurs nor Orient have ruled out pursuing other legal avenues. An OPLC spokesman said: "The court has decided to refuse both Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient permission to pursue a judicial review. "We are pleased with the ruling and continue to make good progress in our negotiations with the preferred bidder in order to be in a position to agree the final terms for the stadium's lease." West Ham's bid - made jointly with Newham Council - proposes to convert the 80,000-seater stadium into a 60,000-capacity ground and, crucially, retain an athletics track. The Hammers' status as preferred bidder has been approved by the Government and Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
And if West Ham can't, or won't, foot their part of the bill, who pays? Newham Council?? Are the taxpayers of The Borough of Newham o.k. with this??
I think Leyton Orient have more to be p*ssed off about (can we swear on here? So many years on the BBC Gestapo-run 606 have neutered my online swearing ability!). Just go back to around 1999-2000 and ask a Port Vale fan how they felt about Stoke City Council pretty much paying for a "Community" stadium then handing it over to Stoke City for peanuts. Not sure how much the "community" get to use it. Port Vale have been in decline ever since. Can see the same for Orient sadly. I'd be one p*ssed off tax payer of whether the hell the borough is knowing that £40million(!) has been given to a joke of a club so they can have a new ground. You can pay for a lot of social workers, care home staff, childrens play grounds, libraries etc with that.
I do hope that all this tosh hasn't detracted the decision men at Spurs from the real business of getting us the right players in, not letting the wrong players go and saying bye-bye to the deadwood. I don't think it has but when you see all the clubs we are aspiring to be in and amongst next season for the trophies, and that all important CL place at the end of it, throwing money around and being linked (then actually buying) the right sort of players I do wonder. Wish Spurs could just drawn a line under it, let the Olympic stadium fall into disrepair under the stewardship of Wet Spam, and then be able to look back and feel ensiluokkainen (its that in the right context?) about the whole palaver!
Swear away, OSS! There's an option for each forum member to allow or block swearing and the latter merely obscures offending words with asterisks. It's bad enough that anyone's moving onto Orient's doorstep, but I think that we might have actually benefited them, in a way. West Ham will have to reduce ticket prices to get anywhere near filling it, whereas ours could have stayed at the current high level. With home games likely to be alternated, you'd get some people that would take advantage of the lower prices at the ground down below and go to Orient games when we were playing away.
Just think it's a sad sign that professional football club has to go cap in hand to a local council to get a new stadium! Down my way Brighton and Hove Albion have finally (just taken 12 years!) got their new stadium at the Withdean. No local authority money was needed, though some grants from sporting organisations which is normal for a club of their size. Little ol' Brighton managed what Wet Spam couldn't and had already sold all their season tickets for this season before last season had finished. Lovely looking ground too and cost more than you would expect to having to be built into a dip in the ground to stop ruining the views of the South Downs! Really hope it goes well for them.... Great young manager and they deserve the success more than Wet Spam ever will. Roll on 30th July.... Brighton v Tottenham at the Amex Community Stadium!
The biggest issue facing Levy and co IS getting us a new ground, either at WHL or elsewhere. Until then the big boys will stay uncatchable. We need a 60,000 seater stadium plain and simple.
The problem is that the new ground has to have the right economics too. If we had 25,000 extra seats and sold them out for each match at £50 a time then we'd have £25-30m more income each year. But if the new ground cost £250m then the interest on this could be around £15m minimum which soaks up half the extra income. The new project at White Hart Lane was going to cost nearly double that so it would basically have broken even (plus any income from the associated development). The Olympic stadium was much cheaper and would have made a big difference. The Emirates project only made sense for Arsenal because of the sale value of Highbury. Sadly WHL is not in such an expensive area.
Powerspurs. Not forgetting the Emirates sponsorship deal, which, I suspect must be worth a few quid. Something we would probably have to look at.
Although a little more expensive, there is lots of space within a couple of miles of your current ground that might be used. Surely a locally purpose built stadium was always the better option?
