GEE - easy now .... It's well known that the Ethels are as loyal as any other fans and better than many. We too have some great German fans - take a bow @GermanAddick and his mates, and all the others.
You have indeed had some relegation years - 5 since 1978 to be exact. And I'll give you some more history. No South London or East London team has ever won the top-tier championship. The highest position - runners up - was posted by CAFC. The highest attendance - your guessed it - CAFC. At 60000 the OS is still 15k below our official record of 75031, which some say should actually be nearer 100000 if gatecrashers are included.
The OS is much too close to us for comfort. That's geography and nothing to be said. But when the deal has been so sweetened - that's going much too far. And I think you know it.
We at least have the consolation that our beautiful stadium is our own. If things go wrong for you, you're welcome to give us a call.
Unless I'm misinterpreting the words WH get a 50% reduction in their usage fee if they allow the stadium to be used for an international or neutral game.
LLDC pay all the stadium policing costs but if WH are forced to provide extra policing outside the stadium area by the League authorities they get LLDC to cough up 50% of the cost.
Cheers GlassHalfFull, I presume Ethels is an endearing term for Germans ? :-) I know it's a great deal for West Ham. I'm just angry with the media focusing entirely on the LLDC paying for heating, goalposts and cornerflags without even trying to point out what kind of money will be coming the LLDC's way apart from the index-linked rent. The share of naming rights and catering income alone will be massive and growing over the years and earn the taxpayer millions in the process. No word about that from the BBC, SSN or Talksport.
I fully understand the incredulity about the deal though as indeed the LLDC was in a weak negotiating position and maybe exaggerated the problem by negotiating badly on top of that. Again, that is not West Ham's fault and why should they pay more voluntarily. If Charlton offered you a Charlton ticket for a fiver, would you say "No, that's too low, I'll be giving you 15 quid and buy a shirt and a scarf as well." ?
Charlton are an important part of the London football club scene and I don't want to see you in League One long-term (don't forget, you once shared the Boleyn, so there is some positive back story here).
But plse understand that even if things go tits up for West Ham I will never turn my back on them and won't be giving you a call. After my recent trip, inspired by a mate, I have made Dagenham&Redbridge my second team and as you can gather again I haven't made that choice for gloryhunting or plastic reasons.
Good luck on Saturday against Derby, it'll be a tough game for sure...
Cheers GlassHalfFull, I presume Ethels is an endearing term for Germans ? :-) I know it's a great deal for West Ham. I'm just angry with the media focusing entirely on the LLDC paying for heating, goalposts and cornerflags without even trying to point out what kind of money will be coming the LLDC's way apart from the index-linked rent. The share of naming rights and catering income alone will be massive and growing over the years and earn the taxpayer millions in the process. No word about that from the BBC, SSN or Talksport.
I fully understand the incredulity about the deal though as indeed the LLDC was in a weak negotiating position and maybe exaggerated the problem by negotiating badly on top of that. Again, that is not West Ham's fault and why should they pay more voluntarily. If Charlton offered you a Charlton ticket for a fiver, would you say "No, that's too low, I'll be giving you 15 quid and buy a shirt and a scarf as well." ?
Charlton are an important part of the London football club scene and I don't want to see you in League One long-term (don't forget, you once shared the Boleyn, so there is some positive back story here).
But plse understand that even if things go tits up for West Ham I will never turn my back on them and won't be giving you a call. After my recent trip, inspired by a mate, I have made Dagenham&Redbridge my second team and as you can gather again I haven't made that choice for gloryhunting or plastic reasons.
Good luck on Saturday against Derby, it'll be a tough game for sure...
It's all a conspiracy... You're beginning to sound like a Millwall fan.
Now being compared to a Millwall fan, it keeps getting better this...LOL GlassHalfFull, I suppose it's too late for you guys to avoid relegation this season, you'd need to win at least four games for that to happen I believe. But hopefully you will manage to get better owners soon and return to playing some decent football that'll get you back to the Championship quickly.
Whoever negotiated that deal was either wearing a claret and blue scarf, corrupt, or a cretin.
Personally think our mayor is the last two.
Our Prime Minister is all three (in my opinion) although he seems unsure about which team the claret and blue relates to.
I'm absolutely sure that slip up wasn't by pure chance. The links between The West Ham Board and the current Tory administration are too many for that particular faux pas to be explained as 'brain fade' and just left at that. There's a reason why Dodgy Dave said West Ham and that's because it's a club on his mind.
The cynic in me also leans towards these details being released today when tomorrow's front pages are going to be dominated by Corbyn's EU speech and now an annoucement about joint EU tax avoidance measures, etc. A good day to bury bad news and all that.
Evening all. Delighted the LLDC have given in and released it. Annoying for me that they did it on a rare day when I was completely tied up, and still haven't had a chance to go through it.
Would appreciate the maximum CL - sourcing of new nuggets of info from the full contract. Interested too if @gavros et al offer their own claret and blue versions. Why for example gavros, do you think we have misunderstood the policing cost burden?
The main point this evening is that finally, more than 700 days after I put in the request, we all have the chance to read the entire contract.
So if the LLDC earned naming rights and catering share from West Ham alone to the tune of 8 or 9 million a season initially with further increases in later years, would you consider that as LOL worthy money back to the taxpayer ? Considering there will be more money on top of that from other events ? How many million a year would you consider as profitable then ? Also considering it's a 99 year lease. How much money would you like to see the LLDC earn from keeping the OS up and running ?
So if it is going to earn the taxpayer millions of pounds, at what point do you think the £700million or so will be raised so the taxpayer can start earning?
So if the LLDC earned naming rights and catering share from West Ham alone to the tune of 8 or 9 million a season initially with further increases in later years
You're on fire. Have another LOL.
I've explained before why this is fantasyland stuff but you don't engage so can't be bothered explaining again.
Dont want to double post.
Congratulations Prague. Fantastic work, just rewards. Can't promise to help but hope I'll be able to try.
Why is this fantasy stuff ? If you don't care to explain quickly again, so be it. You are aware of course that it was never the LLDC's remit or purpose to earn back the entire building costs of the OS as it was built for the Olympics and has served its purpose in that respect, the building costs are sunk costs, so it is mainly about recovering the conversion costs over time and then earning the LLDC an overall profit without the OS being a further financial burden over the 99 year lease for the taxpayer.
We know now that the naming rights fo almost exclusively to the LLDC and I suppose we can be sure a massive global player will buy the naming rights and as it is London it won't be cheap. With the global appeal of Premier League football I can easily see the LLDC getting 6 or 7 million a year from the naming rights (with West Ham getting 2 million) and you can also be sure that 60K people per game will spend a bit of money on catering most of which will go to the LLDC as well.
Yes, West Ham got a fantastic deal, but don't try to insinuate the LLDC will not get anything out of this. It'll be a moneymaker for West Ham AND the LLDC, a compromise. Then again, if you only watch the BBC or listen to Talksport you probably won't be interested in the money coming in at all, but only in the money going out...
Why is this fantasy stuff ? If you don't care to explain quickly again, so be it. You are aware of course that it was never the LLDC's remit or purpose to earn back the entire building costs of the OS as it was built for the Olympics and has served its purpose in that respect, the building costs are sunk costs, so it is mainly about recovering the conversion costs over time and then earning the LLDC an overall profit without the OS being a further financial burden over the 99 year lease for the taxpayer.
We know now that the naming rights fo almost exclusively to the LLDC and I suppose we can be sure a massive global player will buy the naming rights and as it is London it won't be cheap. With the global appeal of Premier League football I can easily see the LLDC getting 6 or 7 million a year from the naming rights (with West Ham getting 2 million) and you can also be sure that 60K people per game will spend a bit of money on catering most of which will go to the LLDC as well.
Yes, West Ham got a fantastic deal, but don't try to insinuate the LLDC will not get anything out of this. It'll be a moneymaker for West Ham AND the LLDC, a compromise. Then again, if you only watch the BBC or listen to Talksport you probably won't be interested in the money coming in at all, but only in the money going out...
Well OK, back of the envelope and stuff.* If the LLDC get six million a year in naming rights, plus lets say four million in rent and share of catering and so on, minus the maintenance and security and etcetera thats about ten million. The conversion costs were, what, 250 million or so? So after about 25years there might be a return to the taxpayer from this deal. I might be wrong, and the taxpayer might be pocketing £50 million per year from summer 2017. What happens about the legacy regeneration of the area for the first 25 years then? *my calculations are rough ones.
Why is this fantasy stuff ? If you don't care to explain quickly again, so be it. You are aware of course that it was never the LLDC's remit or purpose to earn back the entire building costs of the OS as it was built for the Olympics and has served its purpose in that respect, the building costs are sunk costs, so it is mainly about recovering the conversion costs over time and then earning the LLDC an overall profit without the OS being a further financial burden over the 99 year lease for the taxpayer.
We know now that the naming rights fo almost exclusively to the LLDC and I suppose we can be sure a massive global player will buy the naming rights and as it is London it won't be cheap. With the global appeal of Premier League football I can easily see the LLDC getting 6 or 7 million a year from the naming rights (with West Ham getting 2 million) and you can also be sure that 60K people per game will spend a bit of money on catering most of which will go to the LLDC as well.
Yes, West Ham got a fantastic deal, but don't try to insinuate the LLDC will not get anything out of this. It'll be a moneymaker for West Ham AND the LLDC, a compromise. Then again, if you only watch the BBC or listen to Talksport you probably won't be interested in the money coming in at all, but only in the money going out...
I think though, that the argument is that WHUFC did get a fantastic deal, but the LLDC/taxpayer did not do so well. If it was a true compromise, there would have been a higher annual rental and the benefits would have been shared equally. But they do not appear to be.
In our premiership days catering was worth around £1 per fan per match (source: Airman Brown), so even if you assume a 50% increase on that, that's only £90k per game, or around £2 million per year. So if LLDC is getting £500k + 70%, that's approximately £1.4m per season.
So for LLDC to get the 8-9 million GermanEastEnder is predicting then stadium sponsorship would need to be in the £20 million range, which is total pie in the sky. The only way any figure close to that could be achieved is via sustained success and a combined shirt and stadium sponsorship, which West Ham would surely tell the world is 90% shirt, 10% stadium as to avoid giving to much to LLDC.
Well, don't forget there will be other events (crickets, rugby, concerts etc.) all of which will be pocketed by the LLDC on top of the West Ham money. Who knows how much more the LLDC could have realistically demanded from West Ham before we would have walked away. They wanted a football tenant and due to the earlier cockups in the run up to the Olympics unfortunately they had to spend far too much money on conversion.
As for equally sharing: I agree that West Ham probably should have shared income from selling Upton Park. As for the OS the LLDC get the vast majority of naming rights and general catering income and they get the index linked rent of course and performance related bonuses on top of that. West Ham get to keep all income from ticket sales and also income from corporate ticketing and corporate catering, again one might argue that better negotiators on behalf of the LLDC could have secured a share in those departments as well.
Again, I get some of the criticism, I'd be arguing just the same if another club had struck a lucky deal with an OS built elsewhere. But please direct your criticism at the LLDC and their negotiators, not West Ham. Thank you! And good luck again for your club and your team!
There won't be much, if any, cricket, the few months of the year West Ham aren't using it and therefore have seats in place, athletics will need the track clear. And West Ham have veto on anything that may damage the pitch. It may be politically impossible for them to deny rugby for a couple of years, but they won't want it there and will eventually veto if it they deem it necessary.
LLDC and by association seem to be massively overly estimating additional revenues LLDC will get. I hope I'm wrong, but the FA aren't exactly making a killing on Wembley, and unless LLDC are willing to undercut the FA, Wembley will always be the first destination for extra events in London.
The one flaw about the London Olympics (which I loved) was that the plan for the Olympic stadium made no sense, reducing it to a 25k athletics stadium shared with a football or rugby club made no sense. If this idea had been thrown out before the stadium was built, then none of this would have happened. Instead we got stuck with as stadium which would cost a fortune to convert to something more useful.
West Ham got lucky, they were the least worst option for the LLDC, but the deal sucks for everyone else. The LLDC tried to hush it up to hide their embarrassment, but has no justification for their secrecy.
When they move away from the Boleyn, they won't be West Ham anymore. May as well call themselves Stratford United. The situation is not far removed from MK Dons.
I suspect the Johnny-come-latelys like @Gavros & @ Germaneastender ( that handle is hilarious, there must be hundreds of graves in east London turning over at that name), will love it.
You do know that Stratford is in the old County Borough of West Ham, don't you? Whereas the Boleyn is in the old County Borough of East Ham.
As for "Johnny-come-latelys", christ knows where you get that from. I've been going since the age of 7 (1985 home to Everton if you must know) and I've suffered many years following West Ham. I certainly recall when we did you lot a favour and lent you the ground for your home games, only to get abuse from you.
In fact with Charlton it seems to be a lot of mouth, in stark contrast to Millwall, who have generally kept out of it because they know their fans arent flaky enough to desert them just because someone else has a shiny new stadium.
When they move away from the Boleyn, they won't be West Ham anymore. May as well call themselves Stratford United. The situation is not far removed from MK Dons.
I suspect the Johnny-come-latelys like @Gavros & @ Germaneastender ( that handle is hilarious, there must be hundreds of graves in east London turning over at that name), will love it.
You do know that Stratford is in the old County Borough of West Ham, don't you? Whereas the Boleyn is in the old County Borough of East Ham.
As for "Johnny-come-latelys", christ knows where you get that from. I've been going since the age of 7 (1985 home to Everton if you must know) and I've suffered many years following West Ham. I certainly recall when we did you lot a favour and lent you the ground for your home games, only to get abuse from you.
In fact with Charlton it seems to be a lot of mouth, in stark contrast to Millwall, who have generally kept out of it because they know their fans arent flaky enough to desert them just because someone else has a shiny new stadium.
Not that I'd expect a Hammer to understand the concept but I think you'll find we paid you the market rate for our use of your ground. And I can't remember either now or then anyone abusing WHU about it.
When they move away from the Boleyn, they won't be West Ham anymore. May as well call themselves Stratford United. The situation is not far removed from MK Dons.
I suspect the Johnny-come-latelys like @Gavros & @ Germaneastender ( that handle is hilarious, there must be hundreds of graves in east London turning over at that name), will love it.
You do know that Stratford is in the old County Borough of West Ham, don't you? Whereas the Boleyn is in the old County Borough of East Ham.
As for "Johnny-come-latelys", christ knows where you get that from. I've been going since the age of 7 (1985 home to Everton if you must know) and I've suffered many years following West Ham. I certainly recall when we did you lot a favour and lent you the ground for your home games, only to get abuse from you.
In fact with Charlton it seems to be a lot of mouth, in stark contrast to Millwall, who have generally kept out of it because they know their fans arent flaky enough to desert them just because someone else has a shiny new stadium.
Lent?
We paid West Ham to play there, they didn't subsidise us like the LDDC is subsidising West Ham.
I seem to remember that on at least one occasion the West Ham person collecting our gate money bogged off to Dublin with it, certainly the West Ham staff who were good at shall we say 'creative turnstyling' seemed happy enough with this extra income stream.
It would be great to see Rugby, or American Football, or Showjumping events sharing the Olympic Stadium. Rugby in football grounds is commonplace, so I don't see West Ham being able to veto it if it came up.
No clubs fans will desert them because someone else has a shiny new stadium by the way, our fans didn't desert when we had no stadium at all, so your comment about Charlton fans being a lot of mouth is not only ironic coming from you, but wrong.
I wrote earlier that essentially the West Ham Fans are understandably gleeful, and are enjoying giving the rest of us the finger and you are certainly one of those. I wonder if you can't wait to quit the Boelyn Ground, or if you and many others will shed crocodile tears on that day.
How exactly are the LLDC (try to remember the acronym, the LDDC were the now defunct London Docklands Development Corporation) subsidising West Ham? Anyone with a bit of gumption can work out that the taxpayer will benefit to the tune of £10 million or above per season from this, much more than Manchester Council benefit from the Man City deal, which you lot seem to think is fine.
Rugby has already been seen at the stadium of course and it will do so in future. Cricket too, as confirmed recently by representatives of Essex CCC. And of course athletics.
As for being 'gleeful', I have no idea why I would be. I am actually slightly disappointed by some aspects of the deal such as the stadium sponsorship rights that are capped at about £4 million for West Ham regardless of the size of the total deal. I've been on here for months saying that I support Prague's efforts and once people get around the outrage of the warped reporting of it and actually analyse it in detail, they'll understand its a perfectly good deal for the taxpayer. That's why it overcomes all concerns about state aid easily.
I'd be bloody devastated if we were in West Ham's shoes and had to leave The Valley for some monstrosity in Stratford even if it did mean champions league football. It just wouldn't be enjoyable sitting there in a ground with a load of tourists and no atmosphere.
Comments
You have indeed had some relegation years - 5 since 1978 to be exact. And I'll give you some more history. No South London or East London team has ever won the top-tier championship. The highest position - runners up - was posted by CAFC. The highest attendance - your guessed it - CAFC. At 60000 the OS is still 15k below our official record of 75031, which some say should actually be nearer 100000 if gatecrashers are included.
The OS is much too close to us for comfort. That's geography and nothing to be said. But when the deal has been so sweetened - that's going much too far. And I think you know it.
We at least have the consolation that our beautiful stadium is our own. If things go wrong for you, you're welcome to give us a call.
I know it's a great deal for West Ham. I'm just angry with the media focusing entirely on the LLDC paying for heating, goalposts and cornerflags without even trying to point out what kind of money will be coming the LLDC's way apart from the index-linked rent.
The share of naming rights and catering income alone will be massive and growing over the years and earn the taxpayer millions in the process. No word about that from the BBC, SSN or Talksport.
I fully understand the incredulity about the deal though as indeed the LLDC was in a weak negotiating position and maybe exaggerated the problem by negotiating badly on top of that. Again, that is not West Ham's fault and why should they pay more voluntarily.
If Charlton offered you a Charlton ticket for a fiver, would you say "No, that's too low, I'll be giving you 15 quid and buy a shirt and a scarf as well." ?
Charlton are an important part of the London football club scene and I don't want to see you in League One long-term (don't forget, you once shared the Boleyn, so there is some positive back story here).
But plse understand that even if things go tits up for West Ham I will never turn my back on them and won't be giving you a call. After my recent trip, inspired by a mate, I have made Dagenham&Redbridge my second team and as you can gather again I haven't made that choice for gloryhunting or plastic reasons.
Good luck on Saturday against Derby, it'll be a tough game for sure...
Ethels = Ethel Mermans = Germans. (Ethel Merman was a famous American singer. London slang ....)
Thanks for the good wishes !!
GlassHalfFull, I suppose it's too late for you guys to avoid relegation this season, you'd need to win at least four games for that to happen I believe.
But hopefully you will manage to get better owners soon and return to playing some decent football that'll get you back to the Championship quickly.
Knees up Mutti Braun !!
Can't see us getting a tax rebate for every home in London.
Would appreciate the maximum CL - sourcing of new nuggets of info from the full contract. Interested too if @gavros et al offer their own claret and blue versions. Why for example gavros, do you think we have misunderstood the policing cost burden?
The main point this evening is that finally, more than 700 days after I put in the request, we all have the chance to read the entire contract.
Considering there will be more money on top of that from other events ?
How many million a year would you consider as profitable then ? Also considering it's a 99 year lease.
How much money would you like to see the LLDC earn from keeping the OS up and running ?
So if it is going to earn the taxpayer millions of pounds, at what point do you think the £700million or so will be raised so the taxpayer can start earning?
I've explained before why this is fantasyland stuff but you don't engage so can't be bothered explaining again.
Dont want to double post.
Congratulations Prague. Fantastic work, just rewards. Can't promise to help but hope I'll be able to try.
Did not think you would get full disclosure and so well done to the UK legal process as well. Very few countries in the world would force this.
It will take time to digest.
My first reaction is that it is a lot better than my boyhood club Coventry got on the high field road sale and move to the Ricoh.
The analysis, as then, does not include the amount the club or directors pocket for the sale of the old ground.
It smells bad to me. I've never been in a position where it smells bad and it's fine.
The hammers will still get the stadium though under any scenario. They may get a relatively minor financial penalty but they are in.
You are aware of course that it was never the LLDC's remit or purpose to earn back the entire building costs of the OS as it was built for the Olympics and has served its purpose in that respect, the building costs are sunk costs, so it is mainly about recovering the conversion costs over time and then earning the LLDC an overall profit without the OS being a further financial burden over the 99 year lease for the taxpayer.
We know now that the naming rights fo almost exclusively to the LLDC and I suppose we can be sure a massive global player will buy the naming rights and as it is London it won't be cheap.
With the global appeal of Premier League football I can easily see the LLDC getting 6 or 7 million a year from the naming rights (with West Ham getting 2 million) and you can also be sure that 60K people per game will spend a bit of money on catering most of which will go to the LLDC as well.
Yes, West Ham got a fantastic deal, but don't try to insinuate the LLDC will not get anything out of this.
It'll be a moneymaker for West Ham AND the LLDC, a compromise. Then again, if you only watch the BBC or listen to Talksport you probably won't be interested in the money coming in at all, but only in the money going out...
If the LLDC get six million a year in naming rights, plus lets say four million in rent and share of catering and so on, minus the maintenance and security and etcetera thats about ten million.
The conversion costs were, what, 250 million or so? So after about 25years there might be a return to the taxpayer from this deal.
I might be wrong, and the taxpayer might be pocketing £50 million per year from summer 2017.
What happens about the legacy regeneration of the area for the first 25 years then?
*my calculations are rough ones.
So for LLDC to get the 8-9 million GermanEastEnder is predicting then stadium sponsorship would need to be in the £20 million range, which is total pie in the sky. The only way any figure close to that could be achieved is via sustained success and a combined shirt and stadium sponsorship, which West Ham would surely tell the world is 90% shirt, 10% stadium as to avoid giving to much to LLDC.
Who knows how much more the LLDC could have realistically demanded from West Ham before we would have walked away. They wanted a football tenant and due to the earlier cockups in the run up to the Olympics unfortunately they had to spend far too much money on conversion.
As for equally sharing: I agree that West Ham probably should have shared income from selling Upton Park.
As for the OS the LLDC get the vast majority of naming rights and general catering income and they get the index linked rent of course and performance related bonuses on top of that.
West Ham get to keep all income from ticket sales and also income from corporate ticketing and corporate catering, again one might argue that better negotiators on behalf of the LLDC could have secured a share in those departments as well.
Again, I get some of the criticism, I'd be arguing just the same if another club had struck a lucky deal with an OS built elsewhere. But please direct your criticism at the LLDC and their negotiators, not West Ham.
Thank you! And good luck again for your club and your team!
If it is the whole time, nearly the whole cost of that, as if they had bought the stadium should go to West Ham.
Of the pitch can be removed to allow others to use the stadium, that's different gravy
LLDC and by association seem to be massively overly estimating additional revenues LLDC will get. I hope I'm wrong, but the FA aren't exactly making a killing on Wembley, and unless LLDC are willing to undercut the FA, Wembley will always be the first destination for extra events in London.
West Ham got lucky, they were the least worst option for the LLDC, but the deal sucks for everyone else. The LLDC tried to hush it up to hide their embarrassment, but has no justification for their secrecy.
As for "Johnny-come-latelys", christ knows where you get that from. I've been going since the age of 7 (1985 home to Everton if you must know) and I've suffered many years following West Ham. I certainly recall when we did you lot a favour and lent you the ground for your home games, only to get abuse from you.
In fact with Charlton it seems to be a lot of mouth, in stark contrast to Millwall, who have generally kept out of it because they know their fans arent flaky enough to desert them just because someone else has a shiny new stadium.
We paid West Ham to play there, they didn't subsidise us like the LDDC is subsidising West Ham.
I seem to remember that on at least one occasion the West Ham person collecting our gate money bogged off to Dublin with it, certainly the West Ham staff who were good at shall we say 'creative turnstyling' seemed happy enough with this extra income stream.
It would be great to see Rugby, or American Football, or Showjumping events sharing the Olympic Stadium. Rugby in football grounds is commonplace, so I don't see West Ham being able to veto it if it came up.
No clubs fans will desert them because someone else has a shiny new stadium by the way, our fans didn't desert when we had no stadium at all, so your comment about Charlton fans being a lot of mouth is not only ironic coming from you, but wrong.
I wrote earlier that essentially the West Ham Fans are understandably gleeful, and are enjoying giving the rest of us the finger and you are certainly one of those.
I wonder if you can't wait to quit the Boelyn Ground, or if you and many others will shed crocodile tears on that day.
Rugby has already been seen at the stadium of course and it will do so in future. Cricket too, as confirmed recently by representatives of Essex CCC. And of course athletics.
As for being 'gleeful', I have no idea why I would be. I am actually slightly disappointed by some aspects of the deal such as the stadium sponsorship rights that are capped at about £4 million for West Ham regardless of the size of the total deal. I've been on here for months saying that I support Prague's efforts and once people get around the outrage of the warped reporting of it and actually analyse it in detail, they'll understand its a perfectly good deal for the taxpayer. That's why it overcomes all concerns about state aid easily.
No-one will get a match day ticket without being a member.