BBC1 broadcast their investigation into the London Stadium on Monday night in a re-hash of what many have bleated on about before together with good old fashioned West Ham bashing thrown in for good measure. Old critics include London Assembly politician Andrew Boff, Richard Hunt from Charlton Athletic Supporters’ Trust and former Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn all lined up to take cheap shots at West Ham.
Clips of the London Mayor past and present together with Karren Brady in front of a London Assembly committee were edited together and used for dramatic effect to prove the BBC biased point that the London Stadium would continue to be a white elephant and a drain on the tax payer’s purse for years to come. Of course of all of this is West Ham’s fault!
You can watch the full investigation below and make your own mind up on the truth.
seriously this is becoming a joke now. WEST HAM ARE TENANTS ffs if a deal is struck thats it. As Karen Brady has rightly said in the clip (it is what it is) and where does that bloke come from saying anyone else would have a moral duty to put money towards it NO WAY i also think that all these costs are just being heaped up to make west ham look bad from the BBC its not the first time they have tried this either. the figures are right i assume but to try and put it ALL at West Hams door is ludicrous. the only option i think they got left is to sell it to us now sooner rather than later. Mr Gold and Sullivan get your lawyers looking into this there has got to be someone at the BBC with an axe to grind here its gone on for to long now.
there is also a lot left out of the report as well like the share they get from catering/drinks and also the naming rights they left that out very conveniently i,m sure Sean will put it into prospective for everyone to see cos i,m sure there’s more as well
rant over i can goto sleep now lol
Agree with what you say Ray. Nice rant.
Sean I’m not sure if you do requests but could you do an article on what the stadium is worth? All these people saying Sullivan won’t buy the stadium for £800M but he won’t have to surely. Just because it cost £800M to build doesn’t mean it’s worth £800M.
The value of the stadium is its market value and if you accept it can only be a stadium i.e. you aren’t going to knock it down and build offices then it’s worth is judged on its income that it generates. Now, and I bow to your superior knowledge here, I’m pretty sure the stadium is not making a whole lot of money out of West Ham given the low rent vrs the costs they have to pick up even taking into account naming rights and catering etc. We have it for 9 months of the year so that leaves 3 months to generate income. I just can’t see them making a profit for the first 20 years and then of course maintenance of the stadium kicks in. If the stadium isn’t making money then it’s worth is zero!
If Sullivan offered them £100M for the stadium they’d bite his arm off surely? There would be a public backlash of course but the fault for that would still lie with the LDDC because they had their chance to sell it to Sullivan 3 years ago!
One thing I could see is Sullivan saying would we buy it when we have it for 99 years at a pittance anyway? Fair play to him if he said that although I suspect the value of West Ham would increase significantly if they owned the ground.
The estimated cost for Spurs to build a 60,000 stadium in London is £400m so that is the likely value of a stadium.
The cost to build and rebuilt the London Stadium was £753m but that including clearing the radioactive waste from the area to begin with and people seem to forget we held the Olympics in 2012.
We pay £2.5m base rent with adds and it is index linked so the real cost over 99 years is likely to be over £300m,
Here is my simple solution sell the stadium to West Ham for One Billion pounds in the form of a mortgage from the government at £10m per year for 100 years. The tax payer gets their £753m back to stop them whinging and the remaining £247m covers loans and financing costs for the government. In return we get 100% ownership and use of the Stadium to do what we see fir, All the catering rights, all naming rights, we run the stewarding, pay for the policing. We would get the rent for any concerts, cricket, baseball, rugby or american football and all advertising. I am sure we could pay £10m per year and still make it work. The naming rights should be worth £6m per year Catering around £2m per year and other rental of the stadium another £1m so we could be better off that we are now if we could solve some of inflated costs suffered under the public sector ownership. Just an idea……
Sean why on earth would we pay £1bn for something you’ve indicated is worth only £400M (I estimate £100M) as you rightly say the country had the Olympics there so it’s already bought in vast revenue.
Looks like we won’t agree on this. I still say if LS185 aren’t making money on this (guess we will see when they publish their accounts) then holding it for 99 years is pretty pointless and any money (£100M) from the only buyer in town is a positive.
ohhh i did get one part wrong the BBC did mention about naming rights as there is none ATM only to put that as West Hams fault as well i seem to remember that fell through before the season started (not mentioned at all)
select reporting only showing one side to a story to create a bigger story than it really is. like John says above any new venture loses money in the beginning certainly something of this scale. i,m really annoyed the BBC are allowed to do this to the club and get away with it not once but three times
The viewing figures for this show were probably pretty small.Going out in the London area only.It was available to watch through other means but im sure it was played to a pretty small audience in the grander schemes of things.Also if most of my buddies who support other teams are anything to go by they are bored stupid of it now.Be they tax payers or not Lol
Absolutely nothing to do with this but i have been waiting for the sanctimonious ones on Whtid to start lectures on fans being in the wrong calling Payet names.It took longer than expected but finally this morning it was there for all to see.Followed by the normal nodding dogs “Agreed” “Agreed”.In my view anyone is free to call him what he wants without the high & mighty trying to admonish them for it.
I agree Colin. Payet gets what he deserves as he has acted dishonourably. You can’t muck around a fan base that adored you like that and not expect verbal abuse. I’d draw a line at physical abuse (brick thro car window) but the same passion he fed off from the fans is now turned on him. He only has himself to blame. Not that I go in for the name calling but I get why fans do.
I see Getinthehole turned up for some honesty!! He will be banned soon lmao.
They should condem the trash talking of our owners if they are so virtuous.
I finds it fun meself that the same geezers who spend every day *****ing about the owners get all prim & proper over sulky cock.Dont they sees its all a bit pot & kettle
I have never witnessed so many experts on so many subjects in one place.Replete with their nodding “Agreed” dogs.
I wonder. Is there a chance that some numpty decides that the cost of moving the seats is far too high, and rather than fixing it as it is now, they fix it in the athletics mode and tell us to make do?
That would be disastrous. I hope we’ve got posibility that completely ruled out in the contract.
Be something that says they are contractually obliged to change it i would have thought meself.I dont know me ways round contracts on this scale.
The tax payers should build us a purpose built 80.000 football stadium near the London stadium. We move in there, the London stadium can be reduced to 25,000 for athletics and all subsidies are finished. Everyone’s a winner… except Spurs and Orient but that’s ok.
If only we were in a position to say “stuff it where the sun don’t shine”. Then they’d really panic. No doubt all the knockers would then tell us we can’t pull out because we signed a 99 year lease. As for that smarmy,double dyed hypocrite Hearns; how dare he criticise any one else after the slimy tricks he has performed over the years? As for the rest why don’t they come up with alternatives to us to keep the stadium from dying ? Because nothing else is viable. Everybody wants to get their 15 minutes of fame but nobody puts both sides of the argument. COYI X
Funniest of all is the Bolshie Backstabbing Corporation slating others for wasting tax payers money. Can it possibly get any more hypocritical? Give me strength.
You have to laugh at Barry Hearn really,he was one of the first to try n get a piece of this ” morally wrong,contract ” says a lot about himself.
Spurs also wanted to get in on the act,so much so they were willing to pretend it was in North London. Because we all know how much they’ve slagged East London, for years n years.
Hard luck,enough already its ours end of story.COYI
I wonder if anyone has thought to ask the BBC how much the tax payer has had to subsidise them for court cases related to operation yew tree something they are allegedly guilty for ? The only thing we are guilty of is getting a good deal in a fair competition, the LLDC wanted a legacy and we were the only ones that agreed to provide it and could deliver it, we are not responsible for the terrible seating design or choosing a contractor that went bust, every other football club can get a multi-million pound naming deal yet the LLDC etc can’t even find a deal for an iconic venue and we certainly aren’t responsible for the financial recklessness before during and after the Olympics by these people, yet it is always West Ham’s fault…
Funny how the main contributors to that one sided regional news piece are local football associated from Orient and Charlton, jealous? You bet!
The problems with the stadium were sown from the get go when Tessa Jowell and Seb Coe insisted on creating an athletics oriented stadium with the intention of downsizing the capacity after the olympics. It was so short sighted and unrealistic. They made their own bed and now their trying to scapegoat the only viable solution. Yes we got it on the cheap definitely and, thanks to Karen Brady, on a great deal, but its far from perfect for football. The seating tiering is too shallow and there are the problems with the retractable seating and the track in the way, not to mention the stewarding and access issues to date.
But we are where we are, there is no going back and we have to look forward and sack off this ridiculous retrospective moratorium of navel gazing which frankly is just BBC London with a cross to bear, and Sadiq Khan trying to take a party political pop or two at his predecessor. Ive not heard anything of what the critics think the solution should have been, especially as they wanted to retain the landmark and athletics legacy they were always banging on about. Blame lies squarely with Jowell and Coe in my book.
COYI
Jim, regarding the blame, you forgot Livingstone who was equally involved with Jowell and Coe.
The Singapore stadium looks sensational!