This won’t take long!
As reported elsewhere it looks likely that something of a hatchet job on the Irons during the documentary – ‘The Olympic Stadium’ – on BBC London tonight.
It’s likely the thrust will be how the taxpayers have been ripped off to give the Irons a brilliant stadium in which to play for their football for the next 99 years.
What’s unlikely to be mentioned – although I’m ready to be proved wrong – is that David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady did a genius deal in landing the OS for an investment of £15 million and around £2 million a year rent.
Ok, I’m a taxpayer and like everybody else I am always unhappy when the Government uses my contributions to fund enterprises with which I disagree. A given!
But let’s be straightforward about this – if anybody is unhappy with the way this deal was conducted on behalf of the London taxpayer then the blame lies firmly at the door of the London Legacy Development Corporation – NOT WEST HAM UNITED.
Negotiations were conducted with our owners who made their best offer which was accepted and what a deal it was. £2 million a year plus the initial £15 million. Blinding!
As for the rest of the sour grapes from those who didn’t get a piece of the action. One word…TOUGH!
But if tonight’s programme is about blaming the Irons I’m afraid the BBC has trained it’s guns on wrong target.
So another stick to beat us with from the good old BBC… First MOD with that muppet Shearer now this… I expect we shall see a programme on Tinpot aquiring the business that didn’t want to sell it until numerous threats but I doubt it
Yes,quite and a few others!
So basically Tory Lord Coe (Chelsea) is a better money grabbing dirty underhand dealer than WHU’s Tory Baroness Brady.
I bet the BBC don’t bother considering the alternatives and what that would have cost the taxpayer. Maintaining a big white elephant for athletics or community events would have returned nothing and cost millions. Everybody wins from this deal over the long run but of course good news doesn’t sell newspapers or boost viewing figures.
Maybe the BBC could ask Coe how many £m’s has his companies made with ‘consultant’ contracts over the whole Olympic games (before & after). That condescending little **** should be held to blame. It is mainly down to him that the conversion costs are so bloody high.
Only one person to blame, Seb Coe
How you can stubbornly follow the path of an athletics only legacy by deliberately building a stadium that cannot be used for football without major redevelopment is bordering on gross miss-conduct.
But it has to be WHU’s fault as we are the closest viable club to the stadium and allowed ourselves to be forced into a rent only deal. Unbelievable !
At least it is only on BBC London,no one from other areas will get the chance to get see it unless on i-player.Damage limitation to keep the countries moaners at bay 😉
Sky channel 954 – available to the majority.
If only one good thing comes off this BBC “investigation” maybe it is that West Ham and the LLDC may use this programme as a valid reason to hit back at the critics and fight their corner on this.
Using exactly those arguments and figures mentioned in the article above.
People should ask themselves why a Premier League club like us should pay over the odds just because a stadium has been build (and converted) with public money when said club doesn’t get any ownership of the place and only rents the stadium for 25 dates a year for 99 years.
People should be told about why this stadium is now only available for rent, why conversion costs were as high as they now seem to be and why West Ham are only paying very little upfront.
There are reasons for this and most of them are not down to West Ham or even the LLDC (who had to make the best of a chaotic situation) but to people who are still being put on a pedestal, people with titles who thought an Olympic Stadium didn’t have to be constructed with a future football use in mind.
How about the BBC doing a programme called “How Lord Coe and Dame Jowell cost the taxpayer millions of pounds by being very shortsighted about the future of the OS”.
Could this be the same BBC that take millions of pounds a year in government /Taxpayer money each year in subsidies and still charge us with their outdated licencing system only to show repeat after repeat after repeat?? Sometimes their programming schedule is as high as 60% repeats.
What happened to the BBC doing” BALANCED REPORTS ON NEWSWORTHY ITEMS”
indeed that is , or was, there watchword.
It’s going to be a biased, one sided, erroneous report and the BBC should be ashamed of themselves and if it is so one sided, I hope the West Ham Management sue them , big time.
I gather there is going to be a comparison to Man City paying 4mill for their rent. I was under the impression that Man City actually paid based on attendance not a luxury West ham have, however maybe that report was wrong or has changed however if true the rent is then based on them having become a super rich club thereafter and filling it then.
Anyway thats a diversion, their rent is based on it being though rented totally their ground, that it is a 100% football stadium and over which they have complete control as a result. West Ham’s deal is different mostly based on the fact that they don’t have complete control of it full time only joint users and give up other revenues by comparison in merchandising and branding that put us at a big disadvantage as compared to man City while likely providing income, especially when the extra value of naming rights by WHU being there is considered, that will match or who knows maybe exceed what Man City pay for their very own football stadium.
What also annoys me, as it will be repeated in this programme is that when in the design/proposal stage ‘there was no football club willing to occupy it’ post games and thus ‘that option could not be incorporated at that time’. Well you can twist words but that is fundamentally a lie, West Ham tried 3 times to negotiate just that option in that period but were rebuffed on each occasion either by the fact that the political elements simply did not want their participation or because the terms were deliberately made so unpaletable that no agreement could be reached. To claim the option was not there is rediculous and the fact that the club were by that body offered an alternative site by compensation gives the lie to it when clearly building 2 separate stadiums was from a logical and cost point of view madness. Fact is someone did not want West Hams involvement back then be it Harman, Livingstone or A N Other.
We got a great deal and the board did a brilliant job,
The rest is jealousy from other London clubs who could not get a deal done,
People like Hearn and Levy who have pulled their own stunts and hurt real people or made big money,
No one talks about the deal Man City got on their new stadium,
The O2 was a big white Elephant and now makes good money for non English people,
The tax payer owe us not the other way around
Dead right – West Ham by going into the Olympic Stadium have prevented it from becoming an expensive White Elephant.
I think everyone would agree that the 2012 Olympics were brilliant – but there were catastrophic failings by the people who originally planned for a temporary structure which would revert back to a 25,000 Athletics Stadium which would host a handful of Athletics events a year and lose millions more.
There were no toilets within the Stadium, there was no Hospitality areas, no roof – the failings go on and on. The blame for this catastrophe, where the buzzword was supposed to be ‘Legacy’, lies firmly at the door of Tessa Jowell, Seb Coe, Ken Livingston and the LDDC.
West Ham and particularly the Two Dave’s and Karen should be applauded for the brilliant deal they struck with the LDDC – the Olympic Stadium now has a future!
Let’s see how Brady comes out of this. As a Tory Baroness I’m sure she pulled a stroke to get it favourably. It will be interesting to see what she does.
rom what i have read the club refused to comment, nothing new will be said tonight. How much of the program will point out that Spuds wanted to pull the whole thing down & build a new stadium, Hearn wanted to ground share for nothing & have about 2,000 people there for each home game. If Athletics was going to have sole use of the stadium then the tax payer would have to subsidies the stadium for years to come. How much would it have cost to redevelop the stadium into a 25,000 seater stadium? Crystal Palace stadium has been left to become run down because lack of use. The labour government are the ones who rubber stamped the plans for the stadium & even at planing stage when the idea of a football club taking over the stadium after the games the powers that be refused.
The small amount it cost to redevelop Manchester City’s stadium was because football use was the plan for long term sustainability, the OS wasn’t.
Dan Roan of the BBC seems to enjoy winding up the taxpayer telling them West Ham have ripped them off by getting a free stadium. What he fails to mention is that before the fiasco of numerous public enquiries and judicial reviews west ham were quite prepared to buy the stadium outright and take this white elephant of the taxpayer’s hands, but Messrs Levy and Hearne put a stop to that. Now that a stadium not built for football use is about to become the home of the mighty Hammers, west ham instead of being applauded for their enterprise and foresight, they are being made out to be the bad guys.The design cock up is from the olympic committee/Athletics/and government depts at fault , Shame on the BBC i hope someone has right of reply and puts the record straight with another documentary telling the truth.