West hams bid to buy the olympic staduim

As been accepted, I can hear Barry Hearns head explode from here

 

I wouldn't fancy watching the match via a running track

 

They've not bought it. They've been given it.

 

Govt put in £25 million and charge £2 million a year rent and allows them to keep all merchandise/ticket sales.

What does the holding company charge BFC again?

 

I was lucky enough to get athletics tickets for the Olympics, and it's fair to say I'm pretty gutted about this.

The legacy of the Olympics isn't what it should be, but instead sold at a ridiculously low level to a football club who coukld have afforded much more. West Ham are effectively being gifted a £400m stadium, with the public purse picking up another £145m development to turn it into a football stadium. West Hams contribution is just £15m and £2m a year rent for the next 99 years. Even in 99 years time (not discounting effects of inflation), West Ham get £545m of stadium for £203m paid over a century.

Absolutely stinks.

I can't stand west ham as a club, owners, players, manager, attitude, fans.

I hope they get relegated and struggle to find there way back up so they are left with a stadium they can't fill.

 

Hearne on talksport now.

Be new ground anyway in couple of seasons to visit

 

Exactly. And add in that they take all ticket/merchandise profit they're improving their club, their chances to compete at the highest level and will probably make a profit each year on the £2 million.

Add in the sale of Upton Park and the tax payers have been royally shafted.

 

Barnsley pay £150k pa for a 22,000 capacity ground, which would equate to about £400K pa for a 60,000 capacity ground.

The LLDC have an asset that nobody wants in its present form. It has to be converted whoever takes it on. The stadium conversion costs would have to be incurred whether the new tenant be West Ham, Orient, Tottenham or Rag Arse Rovers. The cost are to put the stadium into a usable condition, whilst retaining the ability to use the stadium for athletics (which was guaranteed within our Olympic bid proposals. Furthermore, West Ham will never be the owner of the ground. They are merely tenants. They currently have a decent ground which appears adequate to meet their current requirements, but have to find £15m funding towards the conversion and a further £2m pa for renting the ground. I am not sure that a shiny new stadium, albeit a rented stadium, is worth the risk. They still need a far better team to have any chance of filling it every week, and as Chelsea and Manchester City have found, that involves serious investment in players.

Just to illustrate, if a 60,000 capacity stadium was built at Cudworth, would moving there represent a good investment for BFC on the same terms?

 

So 'we' pay 3 grand a week for something 'we' used to own ?

Yeah yeah I know, it just dunt sit right with me.

 

And we're paying for the lovely person to be converted.

Breakdown of conversion funding

Government: Around £60m

Loan from Newham Council: £40m

LLDC loan: £20m

West Ham: £15m

There will also be funding from London Mayor Boris Johnson's budget

 

Unfortunately, that is what happens when you go bust. The money is paid to Oakwell Holdings, which bought the land and buildings from the administrator for £6m. The land and buildings comprise the ground and the training facilities including the indoor facility. The rent represents a return of just 2.5% on the investment, so if the club had taken out a loan in order to fund the purchase of the asset, the cost would have been more than £150k in interest charges. The owners of Oakwell Holdings are the Council and Patrick Cryne. I have not seen the accounts of Oakwell holdings, so I do not know whether the earnings are being taken out in dividends, or retained in the company in order to fund possible future development of the stadium.

 

I get that mate, but West Ham are paying a grand total of £213 million over a period of 99 years. During that time they take full profits for ticket sales (which will increase), merchandise (which will increase with ticket sales) and only share a % of hospitality costs. So they'll be making money from the stadium. Nailed on. The same stadium that will cost the tax payer an extra £120 million on top of a cost of £400 million to build it in the first place.

That, to me, is not a good deal to tax payers. It could have sat still, unoccupied for over 50 years and it would still have been cheaper than the current deal for the Govt.

Personally, I think it stinks.

 

Its being discussed on radio five right now. In my opinion it stinks that the taxpayer is coughing up for a premier league football ground.

 

I'm not 'knocking' any individual, just am still (and always will be) ****** off at the process.

 

It would appear that not many West Ham supporters are for moving. All their pubs etc are near Upton Park whereas they have nothing at the Olympic Stadium.

 

What I don't understand is why it costs £140m to convert the stadium. What exactly needs converting!? Why didn't they build it with a future use in mind?

 

The whole thing just seems illogical. The West Ham fans seemingly do not want to go, I doubt they'll fill the new ground unless they suddenly become a top club, the stadium is not suited to football no matter what renovations they make and the that's leaving the eithcs of the situation alone.

Thing is, I don't like West Ham, but they're one of a few Premiership clubs who have retained that old school atmosphere. Their ground has massive character, atmosphere, a proper home end, singing areas that have evolved over the years rather than artificially created and the ground is situated within the East End community with local pubs around it. All that heritage is being destroyed in favour of a big bowl some four(?) miles away. Sad.