Do West Ham have a moral duty to pay a fair price? - Now we know a lot of people's view is morals don't come into it and as a business, some would say that they are entitled to try to get the most beneficial deal they possibly can, even if it is off the backs of tax payers and is ridiculously beneficial to them.
Then there is the LLDC. Their position is different. They had a responsibilty to tax payers to look at this differently. This outcome has either been due to gross incompetence or dishonesty. Which of the two I don't know but it explains why they have been so obstructive and dismissive of the rights of tax payers who are paying their wages and paying for this up to now. The judgement has proven their arguments were nonsense - you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to realise something poor has happened here and it is in the public interest that we try to find out as much as we can about it.
It clearly isn't in the interests of certain politicians and West Ham. West Ham, because even if they can't be blamed other than morally, a possible outcome is that they may be forced to pay a fair price. Not an expensive one, this is clearly going to be a great deal for them whatever, but a reasonable one.
Clubs like Arsenal who bought their own ground and paid for it who could be leapfrogged by West Ham have a right to be upset. Also clubs like us who will be directly affected financially going forwards, even if the idiots we have in charge are too stupid to understand the implications of local cheap or cheaper tickets flooding their market and above all a club like Leyton Orient. A club that should be classed as just as important as West Ham, but could end up going out of business, thanks to tax payers, some of them Orient supporters!
A tax payers we need to make these idiots accountable. Had this not been exposed they would be patting themselves on the back and giving themselves bonuses. Maybe they still are. But we all have a collective duty to challenge these poor behaviours and ensure they are not repeated.
And I will say one last thing about Gold and Brady. They are active in a party that is critical of all these scroungers benefitting from the state, but through this, when it is all reckoned up, they will have personally benefitted imeasurably more than any of the people they wish to attack. West Ham will become a much bigger business which they will sell at some point for great riches thanks to taxpayers. That is the corrupt evil world that we live in unfortunately.
Personally, I think that if that's the best deal the LDDC can negotiate then as a taxpayer I'd rather we turn it back into a national athletics stadium, whatever the cost. If we are going to have to subsidise the stadium it might as well be for something to reach out to taxpayers across the country.
One question I've not seen asked is what could the OS got for naming rights without football compared to with WH there. The owners of the dome obviously get good money from O2 without football. If Westham do a deal that includes shirt sponsorship such that the LLDC only get £1m is that more and less than they would have got through a deal for a non-football stadium?
I can't help feeling they'd have got a few million a year as a multi-use venue, and they'll only see more than that from WH if any stadium sponsorship isn't linked to a shirt sponsorship and is then bigger than any purely stadium sponsorship in football history.
You keep mentioning the costs to build the OS in the first place, well, it was built for a very successful Olympics, that was the main purpose, the money for that is sunk cost, it was budgeted for the Olympics and nothing else. The post-match use is a different matter and if people had acted with a bit of common sense and foresight we wouldn't need to talk about conversion costs which have spiralled near 300 million, in Manchester common sense prevailed, all of which contributed to modest conversion costs.
The LLDC had one question to answer: Do we want to keep the OS with an athletics legacy or knock it down? Once the decision had been made they needed to spend money to turn it into a proper multi purpose arena. If we can agree that 10 million income for the LLDC is a very decent start and that the rent is index-linked plus the naming rights are likely to raise more money in the future rather than less (most of which will go back to the LLDC in the first 20 years at least unlike Man City who pocket the lot for a modest increase in rent) then the question really is: What is a fair deal ?
One that doesn't make West Ham (or any other anchor concessionaire who might have moved in) benefit financially at all ? (The truth is no club in the world would have signed a deal like that.) One that gives the anchor concessionaire only little financial benefit ? (Again, apparently the LLDC simply didn't find a club willing to move under those terms.)
Or one that will allow the LLDC not only to recoup the conversion costs over time (and even the original building costs, but of course you won't buy that) but even make regular and substantial profits 20 or 30 years down the line ? This is what's going to happen and that's why it is not state aid. If you are a long-term investor (99 year lease) and make a decent profit over the 99 years (even after spending another 280 million in the process) it is a deal a private company would have made as well. Look up the Coventry City case and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I know the deal still sounds ridiculous what with the new TV deal and all. But again, look at the bigger picture. A government spending 280 million on the conversion of a stadium that will earn money over 99 years is a drop in the ocean compared to many other projects where your government (like many others) spends/wastes money to the tune of billions, not millions. The media may try to make it look as if West Ham are responsible for hospitals or schools closing down, that indeed would be a very simplistic way to look at it, don't you think?
If a club offers to buy a player from you for 5 million (unlikely, I know), would your club hierarchy or fanbase go all altruistic and say "Nah, he ain't worth that really, come on, you can have him for 1 million ?" Don't kid yourselves. You do have a problem with West Ham (a club only a few miles away from you) getting this massive chance to improve (by sheer luck of the OS being on our patch) and taking it too.
Would the deal be better if the LLDC got 20 million a year ? 30 ? 50 ? Would you have prefered no conversion at all with no anchor concessionaire from the Premier League and the OS having to spend 4 or 5 million a year anyway to keep the place from rotting away ? Or indeed one where the OS is bulldozed down (500 million building costs gone in a flash) - good use of taxpayers' money that...
PS: Naming right sponsor is rumoured to be Samsung Electronics...I'm sure they would have gladly sponsored the place with only athletics, darts and cricket in there...
The amount spent on the conversion could have run the stadium for 50 years, with other events and sponsors then that could have been even more. All without spending £272 million now (£45 million from one if the most cash strapped local authorities in the country) and without giving a football club an unfair, immoral and potentially illegal leg up, and with out cynically wasting thousands of pounds of public funds to try and hide those facts.
Even if this ends up profitable for the tax payer it's still immoral. It's about the continued trend of privatising profits whilst the public purse takes on the costs and risks. Why should the tax-payer risk £272 million to make WH more successful when WH risk nothing and take all the profit? It's not about WH, it's about our money being used in gsmbles for the sole benefit of private business.
You keep mentioning the costs to build the OS in the first place, well, it was built for a very successful Olympics, that was the main purpose, the money for that is sunk cost, it was budgeted for the Olympics and nothing else. The post-match use is a different matter and if people had acted with a bit of common sense and foresight we wouldn't need to talk about conversion costs which have spiralled near 300 million, in Manchester common sense prevailed, all of which contributed to modest conversion costs.
The LLDC had one question to answer: Do we want to keep the OS with an athletics legacy or knock it down? Once the decision had been made they needed to spend money to turn it into a proper multi purpose arena. If we can agree that 10 million income for the LLDC is a very decent start and that the rent is index-linked plus the naming rights are likely to raise more money in the future rather than less (most of which will go back to the LLDC in the first 20 years at least unlike Man City who pocket the lot for a modest increase in rent) then the question really is: What is a fair deal ?
One that doesn't make West Ham (or any other anchor concessionaire who might have moved in) benefit financially at all ? (The truth is no club in the world would have signed a deal like that.) One that gives the anchor concessionaire only little financial benefit ? (Again, apparently the LLDC simply didn't find a club willing to move under those terms.)
Or one that will allow the LLDC not only to recoup the conversion costs over time (and even the original building costs, but of course you won't buy that) but even make regular and substantial profits 20 or 30 years down the line ? This is what's going to happen and that's why it is not state aid. If you are a long-term investor (99 year lease) and make a decent profit over the 99 years (even after spending another 280 million in the process) it is a deal a private company would have made as well. Look up the Coventry City case and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I know the deal still sounds ridiculous what with the new TV deal and all. But again, look at the bigger picture. A government spending 280 million on the conversion of a stadium that will earn money over 99 years is a drop in the ocean compared to many other projects where your government (like many others) spends/wastes money to the tune of billions, not millions. The media may try to make it look as if West Ham are responsible for hospitals or schools closing down, that indeed would be a very simplistic way to look at it, don't you think?
If a club offers to buy a player from you for 5 million (unlikely, I know), would your club hierarchy or fanbase go all altruistic and say "Nah, he ain't worth that really, come on, you can have him for 1 million ?" Don't kid yourselves. You do have a problem with West Ham (a club only a few miles away from you) getting this massive chance to improve (by sheer luck of the OS being on our patch) and taking it too.
Would the deal be better if the LLDC got 20 million a year ? 30 ? 50 ? Would you have prefered no conversion at all with no anchor concessionaire from the Premier League and the OS having to spend 4 or 5 million a year anyway to keep the place from rotting away ? Or indeed one where the OS is bulldozed down (500 million building costs gone in a flash) - good use of taxpayers' money that...
"...the media may try to make it look as if West Ham are responsible for hospitals or schools closing down, that indeed would be a very simplistic way to look at it, don't you think?"
No, that would be the correct way of looking at albeit it involves a combination of ineptitude, political influence, opportunistic exploitation, and cronyism.
What is it exactly you and your buddy Gavin want fella? You keep coming back making versions of the same point, which has been destroyed time and again, plucking out of your backside fantasy scenarios that end up with it being a good deal for the taxpayers at some point decades in the future and ignoring any of the real issues that highlight what a fabulous/unfair deal WHU got...and now you're trying to suggest the media are biased against your club. Biased...against West Ham! That's beyond laughable.
Personally, I think that if that's the best deal the LDDC can negotiate then as a taxpayer I'd rather we turn it back into a national athletics stadium, whatever the cost. If we are going to have to subsidise the stadium it might as well be for something to reach out to taxpayers across the country.
So it's in taxpayers interest to re-convert it to an athletics only stadium for another £100 million or so and forego £10 million in income a year?
"It's not about WH, it's about our money being used in gambles for the sole benefit of private business.
Again, simplification. Sole benefit of private business ? You just don't seem willing to accept any of the sharing agreements (naming rights/catering etc.) and the money this will bring to the LLDC, you just seem to ignore it.
Despite a public asset being involved this has always been a business decision, West Ham negotiating as best as they could and the LLDC doing the same (although we all know who won that contest). No doubt though Spurs would have negotiated the crap out of the LLDC just the same if they had accepted the terms of the tender, keeping the running track. Or do you think Levy would have volunteered to pay more rent and give up an even bigger share of naming rights and catering ?
Just accept that it simply isn't about what YOU think is a fair deal, or what terms YOU would want. YOU may think you could have negotiated this better than the LLDC and maybe you're right. Then again West Ham might just have walked away and then you'd have this 500 million OS standing around with you having to find a better use for it that wasn't a future burden for the taxpayer. I'm sure you would have knocked it out of the park though and earned billions for the taxpayers.
You may not like the deal and the fact West Ham are moving into the OS, but it is a reality and a fact, deal with it! Unless you can prove in court that something unlawful or illegal happened, you can moan and mope as much as you like.
If you take the conversion costs and divide them by the number of taxpayers in Britain this has cost every taxpayer 7 quid. Not 7 quid a year, 7 quid as one lumpsum for the entire conversion. You are getting riled up over 7 pounds. You may not like West Ham benefitting because they are a rival football club, but at the same token other people may not like the public money being spent on Tottenham's new stadium project, a new flyover in Birmingham, a railbridge in Manchester or an engineering school in Leeds.
The government spends on all kinds of projects only a limited number of people benefit from. Still you don't get your taxes paid back simply because you don't agree with the way your government has spent the money or just because you are not likely to ever get to make use of that particular project. It is how government works. If you don't like it, vote a new government. Then again both major parties in Britain have played their part in the sorry OS saga and neither has covered itself in glory, so there you go...
It's not an over simplification and again you've missed the while point. LLDC have gambled £272 million on WH have 100 years of uninterrupted success and a naming rights deal being struck that can't be twisted in any way to disadvantage LLDC, whilst giving a massive unafir advantage to WH.
And I'm not ignoring revenue sharing deals. I've gone to great lengths to explain how and why they won't work as you think they will. How they won't make LLDC as much as si.ply putting that £272 million in a saving account for 100 years would have done. It is you who keeps ignoring what other people say and repeating your original, defeated points over and over.
There are only a couple of clubs that haven't been relegated in the previous 100 years and LLDC (and by extension every single tax payer) loss that gamble if WH ever get relegated.
So in some mythical, never going to happen world where WH never get relegated, football income continues to climb forever, WH fans spend more on catering than any other clubs fans and WH only accept sponsorships deals that are more in LLDC's favor than their own, then the tax payer might see some return.
In the real world it's going to cost LLDC as much as, if not more than, not having an anchor Tennant and simply renting it out for events and seeking their own sponsorship deal.
We can always make up fantastical situations where things all work out neatly, Roland came up with just such a situation where we had the second lowest budget in the division yet completed for pronotion, but they just don't work. If the deal was going to work out so well for LLDC they'd have been lauding it, not wasting tax payer money trying to hide it.
Yeah, all my points are defeated. You need to wake up to the real world here. Of course it is a bit of a gamble as you can hardly predict how football teams will perform. Would you have predicted your own relegation struggle at the start of the season ? Even clubs like Spurs, West Ham or yes, Arsenal, are not immune against relegation, if things turn out badly, so once you put a football team in there it becomes a bit of a gamble.
It's quite realistic though to assume that West Ham will spent a lot more time in the Premier League than outside of it (West Ham have always come back quickly whenever we were relegated in the past). You can ignore the fact that the naming rights will continue to bring in some serious money for the LLDC as long as Premier League football happens in there. For the first 20 years the LLDC get 4 million naming rights income minimum plus the vast majority of anything above that as West Ham's naming right's share is capped at 2.5 to 3 million a year. They get the vast majority of the catering (70% plus the first 500K) and the LLDC decided they'd rather pay for the stadium's maintenance, heating, policing, stewarding costs plus goalnets and cornerflags rather than sacrificing the lion's share of catering costs.
Wanna guess why ? Probably because the projected catering income share from 25 West Ham games in there with almost every game being a 60K sellout promises a bigger return than around 2 or 2.5 million running costs for the stadium, that's why.
I get all your bitterness and your own club's situation won't give you much reason for escapism here, but just because you think West Ham should pay ten million rent and give up all revenue shares to the LLDC doesn't mean that this is going to happen in real life.
West Ham got a good deal, but not the deal of the century. That one still belongs to the likes of Manchester City and some Spanish clubs. Your bitterness though makes me think that maybe for the sake of the taxpayer West Ham should have walked away from it all and let the government deal with that OS all on its own, trying to make it work somehow without West Ham in there.
We all know of course how Olympic Stadiums all over the world make billions by hosting numerous athletic events and allowing a community football club playing its home games there...Hearn wouldn't have the LLDC run a newsagents, I'm not even sure I would let some of you guys do a paper round...LOL
If I sound annoying, sarcastic and mocking it must be from reading all your sensible and balanced anaylysis of this deal. I recommend you reading it in full, there's some good stuff in there...
So West Ham, very improbably sign a deal similar to Arsenal for kit and stadium sponsorship for £10 million a year (it's not going to happen, Arsenal are the only team with a stadium/kit sponsorship deal that's not with the club's owners). They're going to say to LLDC it's 50% kit 50% stadium, here's £4 million quid, we'll just take £6 million. Or are they going to say it's £9 million kit, £1 million stadium and pocket the difference?
Similarly, West Ham sell an executive hospitality package for £150 a game, they're going to say it's £40 per game for the food, here's your nice big share LLDC, or are they going to say the food only accounts for £20 pound of that, here's your much smaller share LLDC?
You are literally crazy if you think West Ham aren't going to act in their own best interests, and are going let LLDC make anything approaching a profit from this deal at their own expense.
All those failed stadiums that you so rightly pointed out, none of those had 1-2 months of guaranteed athletics every year and none of them had £272 million made available to spend on them. That's £2.7 million a year every year. Maybe Airman could give us an estimate on how much it'd cost to run the Valley a year if it was used for a handful of athletic meeting size events, a handful of concerts and a handful of private corporate events.
You're right, bulldozing it and building flats would have been the most profitable use. Once it was decided the stadium had to stay then the next most profitable use would have been to sell it to someone in need of a stadium. What we've got is a situation where WH get all the benefits of ownership, but none of the costs.
I lease a flat, I have to pay for all bills, all non-structural upkeep, all decoration, everything. West Ham have been given a deal where they lease a flat, but the leaseholder decorates it, pays the electricity bills and charges a rent that can't cover any of those costs in that vain hope that a collection of non-guaranteed income streams that they have absolutely zero control over will make up the difference.
Laughable how its gone from "its definitely a bad deal for the taxpayer" to "under scenario x its a bad deal for the taxpayer".
Straw grasping.
For what it's worth, hosting the Olympics is a bad deal for the taxpayer (politicians and organisers were never honest with us about the degree to which it would be a bad deal). There is a reason why few Olympic stadia are used effectively post Games, and it's because hosting an Olympics is all about prestige - hosts lose money.
The decision about the post Games use of the stadium is also a bad deal for the taxpayer. The current outcome is virtually the worst of all possible worlds for those few taxpayers who are not West Ham fans.
Laughable how its gone from "its definitely a bad deal for the taxpayer" to "under scenario x its a bad deal for the taxpayer".
Straw grasping.
Gavros, there's really no need for you to keep coming back on here now. The information is in the public eye and we can all like it or lump it as we see fit. We've got far more things to be more worried about than the OS and I'm sure you've got far better things to dwell on. So let's just all stick to our respective forums to celebrate or commiserate in our own company.
Laughable how its gone from "its definitely a bad deal for the taxpayer" to "under scenario x its a bad deal for the taxpayer".
Straw grasping.
I've described why scenario x as you call it is almost a certainty, it's you and your German friend who keeps insisting that other far less likely scenarios are definitely going to happen and magically make this a good deal.
Personally, I think that if that's the best deal the LDDC can negotiate then as a taxpayer I'd rather we turn it back into a national athletics stadium, whatever the cost. If we are going to have to subsidise the stadium it might as well be for something to reach out to taxpayers across the country.
So it's in taxpayers interest to re-convert it to an athletics only stadium for another £100 million or so and forego £10 million in income a year?
Losing. The. Plot.
Yes it is worth it. The LDDC clearly don't think the outlay so far is recoverable of its entered into that deal with WHU so therefore we can consider that for a mere £100m (your figure) Great Britain could have a world class athletics stadium that would inspire future generations of athletes. Well worth it I would say, wouldn't you ?
You keep saying that selling the OS would have been the best option, but you all know that this was rebuked when West Ham tried to do it with Newham Council (over state aid issues). Now this has backfired and the rent deal looks even worse for the taxpayers. Then you have the publication of the deal potentially damaging the commercial opportunities to sell further events at the OS at better rates and the deal gets worse again for the taxpayer.
It's easy of course blaming all those simpletons and crap negotiators at the LLDC. Then again it might be wise to acknowledge the role that several other clubs and individuals (included people from this site) have played in ading to the problems for the LLDC to make the OS a profitable investment.
I'm still convinced it will be a success both for the taxpayer and West Ham in the long run (loads of you seem to want big money solutions for the taxpayer all happening short-term, this is rarely what happens though during a long-term lease...)
It's hard to argue though when some of you haven't even read the deal and choose to ignore certain terms clearly benefitting the LLDC and taxpayer. You are like Goldstein on Talksport. If someone answers every point you're trying to make with the retort "I'm not buying that." then what's the point indeed...
You keep saying that selling the OS would have been the best option, but you all know that this was rebuked when West Ham tried to do it with Newham Council (over state aid issues). Now this has backfired and the rent deal looks even worse for the taxpayers. Then you have the publication of the deal potentially damaging the commercial opportunities to sell further events at the OS at better rates and the deal gets worse again for the taxpayer.
It's easy of course blaming all those simpletons and crap negotiators at the LLDC. Then again it might be wise to acknowledge the role that several other clubs and individuals (included people from this site) have played in ading to the problems for the LLDC to make the OS a profitable investment.
I'm still convinced it will be a success both for the taxpayer and West Ham in the long run (loads of you seem to want big money solutions for the taxpayer all happening short-term, this is rarely what happens though during a long-term lease...)
It's hard to argue though when some of you haven't even read the deal and choose to ignore certain terms clearly benefitting the LLDC and taxpayer. You are like Goldstein on Talksport. If someone answers every point you're trying to make with the retort "I'm not buying that." then what's the point indeed...
You keep saying that selling the OS would have been the best option, but you all know that this was rebuked when West Ham tried to do it with Newham Council (over state aid issues).
As you say, West Ham didn't want to buy it, they wanted the tax payer to buy it for them. And you seriously can't see that as an open and shut case of state aid? If West Ham had come in with an offer of £400 million, plus selective usage of facilities on non-match days then nobody could have complained. Even at £300 million they would have got a deal. But instead they wanted the skintest borough in London to pay the lion's share of any purchase and get to won it for a fraction of the cost. The council would have got no more usage than if West Ham had bought it outright, but would be hundreds of millions (that they definitely can't afford) out of pocket for the privilege of giving West Ham a shiny new stadium.
I'm sure you and Gavos are right, West Ham will never get relegated, football will never wain in popularity or income, and West Ham will go against their own best financial interests when negotiating sponsorships and handling hospitality income. Then it might just be a passable/OK deal for the tax payer.
I'm not even blaming WH. The lack of future planing when they built the thing is shocking, and then compounded by political insistence that there had to be a legacy and that it had to involve a premiership football club, finally further stuffed up by LLDC's complete lack of negotiating skills. LLDC have taken on additional running costs they had absolutely no reason to concede and have almost guaranteed naming rights deals are weighted against them by not ensuring they are involved in (and can veto) and negotiations.
PS: Naming right sponsor is rumoured to be Samsung Electronics...I'm sure they would have gladly sponsored the place with only athletics, darts and cricket in there...
Comments
Do West Ham have a moral duty to pay a fair price? - Now we know a lot of people's view is morals don't come into it and as a business, some would say that they are entitled to try to get the most beneficial deal they possibly can, even if it is off the backs of tax payers and is ridiculously beneficial to them.
Then there is the LLDC. Their position is different. They had a responsibilty to tax payers to look at this differently. This outcome has either been due to gross incompetence or dishonesty. Which of the two I don't know but it explains why they have been so obstructive and dismissive of the rights of tax payers who are paying their wages and paying for this up to now. The judgement has proven their arguments were nonsense - you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to realise something poor has happened here and it is in the public interest that we try to find out as much as we can about it.
It clearly isn't in the interests of certain politicians and West Ham. West Ham, because even if they can't be blamed other than morally, a possible outcome is that they may be forced to pay a fair price. Not an expensive one, this is clearly going to be a great deal for them whatever, but a reasonable one.
Clubs like Arsenal who bought their own ground and paid for it who could be leapfrogged by West Ham have a right to be upset. Also clubs like us who will be directly affected financially going forwards, even if the idiots we have in charge are too stupid to understand the implications of local cheap or cheaper tickets flooding their market and above all a club like Leyton Orient. A club that should be classed as just as important as West Ham, but could end up going out of business, thanks to tax payers, some of them Orient supporters!
A tax payers we need to make these idiots accountable. Had this not been exposed they would be patting themselves on the back and giving themselves bonuses. Maybe they still are. But we all have a collective duty to challenge these poor behaviours and ensure they are not repeated.
And I will say one last thing about Gold and Brady. They are active in a party that is critical of all these scroungers benefitting from the state, but through this, when it is all reckoned up, they will have personally benefitted imeasurably more than any of the people they wish to attack. West Ham will become a much bigger business which they will sell at some point for great riches thanks to taxpayers. That is the corrupt evil world that we live in unfortunately.
I can't help feeling they'd have got a few million a year as a multi-use venue, and they'll only see more than that from WH if any stadium sponsorship isn't linked to a shirt sponsorship and is then bigger than any purely stadium sponsorship in football history.
The post-match use is a different matter and if people had acted with a bit of common sense and foresight we wouldn't need to talk about conversion costs which have spiralled near 300 million, in Manchester common sense prevailed, all of which contributed to modest conversion costs.
The LLDC had one question to answer: Do we want to keep the OS with an athletics legacy or knock it down?
Once the decision had been made they needed to spend money to turn it into a proper multi purpose arena.
If we can agree that 10 million income for the LLDC is a very decent start and that the rent is index-linked plus the naming rights are likely to raise more money in the future rather than less (most of which will go back to the LLDC in the first 20 years at least unlike Man City who pocket the lot for a modest increase in rent) then the question really is: What is a fair deal ?
One that doesn't make West Ham (or any other anchor concessionaire who might have moved in) benefit financially at all ? (The truth is no club in the world would have signed a deal like that.)
One that gives the anchor concessionaire only little financial benefit ? (Again, apparently the LLDC simply didn't find a club willing to move under those terms.)
Or one that will allow the LLDC not only to recoup the conversion costs over time (and even the original building costs, but of course you won't buy that) but even make regular and substantial profits 20 or 30 years down the line ? This is what's going to happen and that's why it is not state aid.
If you are a long-term investor (99 year lease) and make a decent profit over the 99 years (even after spending another 280 million in the process) it is a deal a private company would have made as well.
Look up the Coventry City case and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I know the deal still sounds ridiculous what with the new TV deal and all. But again, look at the bigger picture. A government spending 280 million on the conversion of a stadium that will earn money over 99 years is a drop in the ocean compared to many other projects where your government (like many others) spends/wastes money to the tune of billions, not millions.
The media may try to make it look as if West Ham are responsible for hospitals or schools closing down, that indeed would be a very simplistic way to look at it, don't you think?
If a club offers to buy a player from you for 5 million (unlikely, I know), would your club hierarchy or fanbase go all altruistic and say "Nah, he ain't worth that really, come on, you can have him for 1 million ?"
Don't kid yourselves.
You do have a problem with West Ham (a club only a few miles away from you) getting this massive chance to improve (by sheer luck of the OS being on our patch) and taking it too.
Would the deal be better if the LLDC got 20 million a year ? 30 ? 50 ?
Would you have prefered no conversion at all with no anchor concessionaire from the Premier League and the OS having to spend 4 or 5 million a year anyway to keep the place from rotting away ?
Or indeed one where the OS is bulldozed down (500 million building costs gone in a flash) - good use of taxpayers' money that...
Even if this ends up profitable for the tax payer it's still immoral. It's about the continued trend of privatising profits whilst the public purse takes on the costs and risks. Why should the tax-payer risk £272 million to make WH more successful when WH risk nothing and take all the profit? It's not about WH, it's about our money being used in gsmbles for the sole benefit of private business.
No, that would be the correct way of looking at albeit it involves a combination of ineptitude, political influence, opportunistic exploitation, and cronyism.
What is it exactly you and your buddy Gavin want fella? You keep coming back making versions of the same point, which has been destroyed time and again, plucking out of your backside fantasy scenarios that end up with it being a good deal for the taxpayers at some point decades in the future and ignoring any of the real issues that highlight what a fabulous/unfair deal WHU got...and now you're trying to suggest the media are biased against your club. Biased...against West Ham! That's beyond laughable.
Losing. The. Plot.
Again, simplification. Sole benefit of private business ? You just don't seem willing to accept any of the sharing agreements (naming rights/catering etc.) and the money this will bring to the LLDC, you just seem to ignore it.
If you want to get an idea what state aid looks like have a butchers at this:
telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/04/16/west-ham-got-a-great-deal-with-the-olympic-stadium-but-other-clu/
Despite a public asset being involved this has always been a business decision, West Ham negotiating as best as they could and the LLDC doing the same (although we all know who won that contest).
No doubt though Spurs would have negotiated the crap out of the LLDC just the same if they had accepted the terms of the tender, keeping the running track.
Or do you think Levy would have volunteered to pay more rent and give up an even bigger share of naming rights and catering ?
Just accept that it simply isn't about what YOU think is a fair deal, or what terms YOU would want.
YOU may think you could have negotiated this better than the LLDC and maybe you're right.
Then again West Ham might just have walked away and then you'd have this 500 million OS standing around with you having to find a better use for it that wasn't a future burden for the taxpayer.
I'm sure you would have knocked it out of the park though and earned billions for the taxpayers.
You may not like the deal and the fact West Ham are moving into the OS, but it is a reality and a fact, deal with it!
Unless you can prove in court that something unlawful or illegal happened, you can moan and mope as much as you like.
If you take the conversion costs and divide them by the number of taxpayers in Britain this has cost every taxpayer 7 quid. Not 7 quid a year, 7 quid as one lumpsum for the entire conversion.
You are getting riled up over 7 pounds. You may not like West Ham benefitting because they are a rival football club, but at the same token other people may not like the public money being spent on Tottenham's new stadium project, a new flyover in Birmingham, a railbridge in Manchester or an engineering school in Leeds.
The government spends on all kinds of projects only a limited number of people benefit from.
Still you don't get your taxes paid back simply because you don't agree with the way your government has spent the money or just because you are not likely to ever get to make use of that particular project.
It is how government works. If you don't like it, vote a new government.
Then again both major parties in Britain have played their part in the sorry OS saga and neither has covered itself in glory, so there you go...
And I'm not ignoring revenue sharing deals. I've gone to great lengths to explain how and why they won't work as you think they will. How they won't make LLDC as much as si.ply putting that £272 million in a saving account for 100 years would have done. It is you who keeps ignoring what other people say and repeating your original, defeated points over and over.
There are only a couple of clubs that haven't been relegated in the previous 100 years and LLDC (and by extension every single tax payer) loss that gamble if WH ever get relegated.
So in some mythical, never going to happen world where WH never get relegated, football income continues to climb forever, WH fans spend more on catering than any other clubs fans and WH only accept sponsorships deals that are more in LLDC's favor than their own, then the tax payer might see some return.
In the real world it's going to cost LLDC as much as, if not more than, not having an anchor Tennant and simply renting it out for events and seeking their own sponsorship deal.
We can always make up fantastical situations where things all work out neatly, Roland came up with just such a situation where we had the second lowest budget in the division yet completed for pronotion, but they just don't work. If the deal was going to work out so well for LLDC they'd have been lauding it, not wasting tax payer money trying to hide it.
Would you have predicted your own relegation struggle at the start of the season ?
Even clubs like Spurs, West Ham or yes, Arsenal, are not immune against relegation, if things turn out badly, so once you put a football team in there it becomes a bit of a gamble.
It's quite realistic though to assume that West Ham will spent a lot more time in the Premier League than outside of it (West Ham have always come back quickly whenever we were relegated in the past).
You can ignore the fact that the naming rights will continue to bring in some serious money for the LLDC as long as Premier League football happens in there.
For the first 20 years the LLDC get 4 million naming rights income minimum plus the vast majority of anything above that as West Ham's naming right's share is capped at 2.5 to 3 million a year.
They get the vast majority of the catering (70% plus the first 500K) and the LLDC decided they'd rather pay for the stadium's maintenance, heating, policing, stewarding costs plus goalnets and cornerflags rather than sacrificing the lion's share of catering costs.
Wanna guess why ? Probably because the projected catering income share from 25 West Ham games in there with almost every game being a 60K sellout promises a bigger return than around 2 or 2.5 million running costs for the stadium, that's why.
I get all your bitterness and your own club's situation won't give you much reason for escapism here, but just because you think West Ham should pay ten million rent and give up all revenue shares to the LLDC doesn't mean that this is going to happen in real life.
West Ham got a good deal, but not the deal of the century. That one still belongs to the likes of Manchester City and some Spanish clubs. Your bitterness though makes me think that maybe for the sake of the taxpayer West Ham should have walked away from it all and let the government deal with that OS all on its own, trying to make it work somehow without West Ham in there.
We all know of course how Olympic Stadiums all over the world make billions by hosting numerous athletic events and allowing a community football club playing its home games there...Hearn wouldn't have the LLDC run a newsagents, I'm not even sure I would let some of you guys do a paper round...LOL
If I sound annoying, sarcastic and mocking it must be from reading all your sensible and balanced anaylysis of this deal. I recommend you reading it in full, there's some good stuff in there...
Similarly, West Ham sell an executive hospitality package for £150 a game, they're going to say it's £40 per game for the food, here's your nice big share LLDC, or are they going to say the food only accounts for £20 pound of that, here's your much smaller share LLDC?
You are literally crazy if you think West Ham aren't going to act in their own best interests, and are going let LLDC make anything approaching a profit from this deal at their own expense.
All those failed stadiums that you so rightly pointed out, none of those had 1-2 months of guaranteed athletics every year and none of them had £272 million made available to spend on them. That's £2.7 million a year every year. Maybe Airman could give us an estimate on how much it'd cost to run the Valley a year if it was used for a handful of athletic meeting size events, a handful of concerts and a handful of private corporate events.
You're right, bulldozing it and building flats would have been the most profitable use. Once it was decided the stadium had to stay then the next most profitable use would have been to sell it to someone in need of a stadium. What we've got is a situation where WH get all the benefits of ownership, but none of the costs.
I lease a flat, I have to pay for all bills, all non-structural upkeep, all decoration, everything. West Ham have been given a deal where they lease a flat, but the leaseholder decorates it, pays the electricity bills and charges a rent that can't cover any of those costs in that vain hope that a collection of non-guaranteed income streams that they have absolutely zero control over will make up the difference.
Straw grasping.
The decision about the post Games use of the stadium is also a bad deal for the taxpayer. The current outcome is virtually the worst of all possible worlds for those few taxpayers who are not West Ham fans.
We've got far more things to be more worried about than the OS and I'm sure you've got far better things to dwell on. So let's just all stick to our respective forums to celebrate or commiserate in our own company.
Now this has backfired and the rent deal looks even worse for the taxpayers.
Then you have the publication of the deal potentially damaging the commercial opportunities to sell further events at the OS at better rates and the deal gets worse again for the taxpayer.
It's easy of course blaming all those simpletons and crap negotiators at the LLDC. Then again it might be wise to acknowledge the role that several other clubs and individuals (included people from this site) have played in ading to the problems for the LLDC to make the OS a profitable investment.
I'm still convinced it will be a success both for the taxpayer and West Ham in the long run (loads of you seem to want big money solutions for the taxpayer all happening short-term, this is rarely what happens though during a long-term lease...)
It's hard to argue though when some of you haven't even read the deal and choose to ignore certain terms clearly benefitting the LLDC and taxpayer. You are like Goldstein on Talksport.
If someone answers every point you're trying to make with the retort "I'm not buying that." then what's the point indeed...
I'm sure you and Gavos are right, West Ham will never get relegated, football will never wain in popularity or income, and West Ham will go against their own best financial interests when negotiating sponsorships and handling hospitality income. Then it might just be a passable/OK deal for the tax payer.
I'm not even blaming WH. The lack of future planing when they built the thing is shocking, and then compounded by political insistence that there had to be a legacy and that it had to involve a premiership football club, finally further stuffed up by LLDC's complete lack of negotiating skills. LLDC have taken on additional running costs they had absolutely no reason to concede and have almost guaranteed naming rights deals are weighted against them by not ensuring they are involved in (and can veto) and negotiations.