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100 million £££ seems a lot of dough to convert a brand new stadium to me, would it not have been better to have built it ready for a football club to move straight into???

Seeing as we are still 4 years away from the new tenants, their performance this season will have no bearing whatsoever on how West Ham will be able to fund their move to the Olympic Stadium.

Plus if they do get named as the chosen tenants, they will most certainly be able to gather loans from banks to keep them going till they return to the top flight on the basis that they will potentially have the biggest club stadium in London in 4 years time!

Good news for London 2012's athletics legacy and the prospect of Tottenham staying in Tottenham and building the fantastic NDP. Hope you're right Adrian!

I really dont understand why West Ham are moving to this place for? Its going to be half empty most of the times. I know you are going to charge dirt cheap prices but i still dont see how you are going to fill the place out

It would be rubbish if West Ham move to this massive stadium. As said many times before, they can't even fill Upton Park let alone this Olympic Stadium. It will be like Juventus in the Stadio Delle Alpi, massive stadium, half empty with no atmosphere.

Is there any reason why spurs and the hamsters can't share this stadium. clubs in other countries can manage to do this so why not here?

Once again the level of reporting regarding this matter leaves a lot to be desired. As Adrian Warner must know, Newham Council are now preparing to make massive cuts in public spending. This year alone they are expected to reach £70 million and the pay and working conditions of its workforce are to be drastically altered with most facing longer hours, reduced pay and reduced holiday entitlement. Already many of the more vulnerable residents have experienced cuts in their services.

However at the same time Newham Council will make a loan of £80 million to a football club owned by two multi- millionaires.

Somebody care to explain again to the poor residents of Newham all this nonsense about regeneration and the Olympic legacy?

5. At 7:35pm on 24 Nov 2010, In Off The Ghost wrote:

It would be rubbish if West Ham move to this massive stadium. As said many times before, they can't even fill Upton Park let alone this Olympic Stadium. It will be like Juventus in the Stadio Delle Alpi, massive stadium, half empty with no atmosphere.



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Thats why Juve have demolished the Delle Alpi to build a brand 40K football only stadium:

Am I missing something? The Country stumps up £9billion to host an event designed to be of great benefit and legacy to the country - build so-called World Class facilities only to give the 'crown in the jewel' main stadium over to yet another rich football club for nothing just so they can borrow yet another lump sum from their local council (thus residents) to knock half of it down and put up another roof and name it after an already wealthy shopping arcade, charging mega-bucks for entry?

What is the rent the Hammers are likely to pay for all this? Does the country benefit at all long term from these structures or is it The Dome all over again?

quoting 'Field of Dreams'..build it and they will come - and have it for free!

I understand that the seating is not suitable for football spectators, but can somebody please explain why the Hammers need to put a new roof on the stadium? All the pictures I've seen show that the 2012 stadium already has a roof for spectators.

West Ham play football, not tennis or cricket - although as a fan I sometimes wish they did as they are useless at the former!

As for comments about how the stadium will be used after the Olympics, the only really viable option that will fill (or admittedly partially fill it) is football. Else London will end up with another Millennium Dome that sits empty for years at tax payers expense rotting away until the painstakingly obvious option drops into some ludicrous expense claiming politician's mind. So long as it can still be used for athletics events then what is all the fuss about? Nobody else expressed a long term interest except football clubs to my knowledge - Whether it is Spurs, West Ham or Leyton Orient is irrelevant now surely?

I don't quite get this: £100m to convert the stadium OK I understand, but surely WHU will have to pay the OPLC an annual rental for a long time or they will face allegations of unfair subsidies from other clubs. I mean Arsenal paid £400m for a 60,000 seater stadium, Spurs will apparently need to cough up £450m for a 56,000 stadium at WHL, but West Ham get one for £100m? Sounds like a £300m bung to me.........won't there be a £10-15m coupon to OPLC for 20 years to make it all fair and commercial?

I'm sure you can argue the toss on this and I'm sure you could put contingencies into the rental agreement concerning Champions League qualification etc etc,but I don't see how Michel Platini will be able to avert his eyes to this, not to mention the other 19 members of the EPL....

No doubt it'll all come out in the wash??

#11 exactly the point I was trying to make. I'm all for West Ham using the stadium but are they purely tenants on a lease or what. Some facts would be nice.

Surely they'll have an arrangement similar to what Manchester City have got with the council for their stadium. Obviously the cost of building the stadium as well as conversion fees were a lot lower for the City of Manchester stadium but that worked the same way too. The council paid for the ground, City paid for the conversion and finally the club pay a rent to the council.

There is no way that the ultimate contract for the Olympic Stadium will go any other way, and there isn't anything underhanded or sneaky in that.

Whether West Ham will fill the stadium on a weekly basis is another debate but as long as the Olympic committee can guarantee a decent rent from their tenants, I'm sure that is better than having a stadium that lies empty for 11 months and 15 days and only has the odd athletics championship.

#13 But didn't Man City buy the stadium off the council when one of the various sets of new owners took over? I can't imagine the richest club in the world not owning their stadium outright? As I say some hard figures would be nice for the public to see.

Last 5 West Ham Home games:
Wigan - 34,178
BlackPool - 31,194
WBA - 33,023
Newcastle - 34,486
Spurs - 34,190

Capacity of 35k.

Good attendance seeing as they're bottom of the table.

I imagine ticket prices will be cut massively and the Olympic Park will get filled or there abouts.

Will probably effect the local clubs badly. e.g Orient.

West Ham may be able to finance the move as a Championship club but .... will they be able to if they dropped straight through to League 1? They wouldn't be the first team to suffer consecutive relegations

As a West Ham supporter I think this would be good in many ways, but as people have mentioned I really doubt we would fill it week in week out.

Great timing, are we not expecting a McNulty blog about WestHam today as he was at their match? Oh and if you ask him, they are not relegated yet. This piece is good around April, maybe.

It's no secret that Spurs' bid was a stalking horse, and now that Boris Johnson has waived any right to intervene in the planning decision for Spurs's primary target -that of developing their own ground, then West Ham have the Olympic stadium sewn up already -all bar the shouting and signing on the contract line.

The preferred bidder discussions that are now on going are all part of "due process" for any public sector tender. There will be some issues that the evaluation team will want to highlight and challenge etc. but that's normal.

Will they fill the stadium? Until we know the capacity then that's hard to answer. But if it's around 50,000 and the club reduce overall prices then I don't see why the marketing machine can't fill it regularly. Make no mistake the Board and Ms Brady will have their sharp pencils out going over the financial risks and the overall business plan.

Just as a post script to post No 19, I am pleased that the Club and UK psorts have an understanding. However, Sheffield Don Valley Stadium built for the 1991 Wolrd Student Games was intended to be the "legacy" for Athletics. Indeed for a few years the McVities grand prix evnst were help there with sell out crowds of 25,000. But I assume "because it'snot in London" and the Athletics organisation went bust (Diane Modahl case in point) it is now completely overlooked!!

So I say to UK Athletics...just how many stadia do you want???

#14

Man City have made an offer but its still on lease at the moment.

The Olympic bid was won with the promise of a legacy for Athletics and the regeneration or that part of Londons East End. West Ham and Newham councils bid, unike Tottenhams, fullfills that promise by vowing to keep the athletics track and make the stadium an all year round multi use arena that will benefit the whole community, even at the risk of losing the atmosphere that can be generated in a purpose built football stadium.
Their plan also includes schools and a sports college on the site. The extra capacity would also allow West Ham to offer discounted packages to encourage a new generation of fans to the club which they cannot do at an always full Boleyn ground.
I think their plan, along with Newham council to turn West ham into a genuine community based club along the lines of Barcelona is to be applaude.. If the stadium is handed to Tottenham, as I suspect it will be, it will go against everything Seb Coe and his team promised.

The joint bid by Newham council and West Ham United Football club to become tenants of the Olympic Stadium post 2012 is backed by UK Athletics, Live Nation (The worlds biggest Live music Company), The Docklands development agency, Newham chamber of commerce, Stratford residence assosiation, London City Airport, Canary Wharf, Essex County Cricket Club, and the Docklands Expo centre... The Newham West Ham bid is also committed to providing all year round access to the Olympic park facilities by the local community... Tottenham Hotspur And AEG'S bid is committed only to releiving the UK goverment of any debts they may have incurred in underwriting the building of the stadium, and maximising their own future profits.... I have no doubt that the Tottenham AEG bid will win the day..

No way Spurs want this, but even if they do want it and get it, for East London it's a win/win situation. The idea of Orient, Stratford Hotspur, West Ham and Dagenham all being within spitting distance of each other, kind of makes me excited.

"Tottenham" will effectively be dead as a club, having nothing to do with Haringey and it must be a tough decision for them. Arsenal is the best run club in Britain by a galaxy, but their stadium has created a short term struggle Spurs would want to avoid. It's not appealing to spend half a billion quid on a stadium in Tottenham - run down area with poor transport etc... but moving to East London takes away the club's North London soul forever.

Fourth professional football - two in Newham! Suits me either way.
Up the Hammers!

Even if west ham could fund the stadium they could just about get 35-40k at a game . Not bad numbers at all but if there was a running track to apease the mad atheltics wierdos who for some reason think they could gather enough interest in running and jumping on any regular occasion the atmosphere would be terrible .