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Olympic Stadium; our day in court

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  • That article has changed names on my phone to West Ham deny groundshare
  • Well done Prague, I'm sure you must be frustrated right now, but it's a great thing you are doing.
  • Well done today Prague.

    It really doesn't sound like LLDC made much of a fist of it. I would be interested to see whether they might attempt to bring another witness for the remainder of the hearing.

    From the Guardian report it appears that any alleged commercial damage is very nebulous - the requirement under EIR is that there would be, or would be likely to be, damage to the commercial interests of LLDC or others. Vague references to potential losses are unlikely to persuade the Tribunal - I'd expected the LLDC to be a bit more organised...

    As I said, well done.
  • Well done today Prague.

    It really doesn't sound like LLDC made much of a fist of it. I would be interested to see whether they might attempt to bring another witness for the remainder of the hearing.

    From the Guardian report it appears that any alleged commercial damage is very nebulous - the requirement under EIR is that there would be, or would be likely to be, damage to the commercial interests of LLDC or others. Vague references to potential losses are unlikely to persuade the Tribunal - I'd expected the LLDC to be a bit more organised...

    As I said, well done.

    Procedurally I don't think they can. It won't be a new hearing. They can only finish today's agenda.

  • I am a bit unclear as to what a good result is here. Is it embarrassing disclosure of behind the scenes deals leading to embarrassment of those involved, if so very good.

    Is there any real possibility of preventing the Hammers from taking the ground built by public money and getting a massive boost up unfairly and contrary to EU state aid provisions?

    Or is it too complicated to say...

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  • Well done today Prague.

    It really doesn't sound like LLDC made much of a fist of it. I would be interested to see whether they might attempt to bring another witness for the remainder of the hearing.

    From the Guardian report it appears that any alleged commercial damage is very nebulous - the requirement under EIR is that there would be, or would be likely to be, damage to the commercial interests of LLDC or others. Vague references to potential losses are unlikely to persuade the Tribunal - I'd expected the LLDC to be a bit more organised...

    As I said, well done.

    Procedurally I don't think they can. It won't be a new hearing. They can only finish today's agenda.

    I hope you're right, because everything I've seen today indicates that they selected the wrong person. I would really have expected them to put forward someone actually involved in negotiating the contracts...

    Mind you, almost everything I've read has been on here (not that we'd have a bias).

    Fingers' crossed.
  • I am a bit unclear as to what a good result is here. Is it embarrassing disclosure of behind the scenes deals leading to embarrassment of those involved, if so very good.

    Is there any real possibility of preventing the Hammers from taking the ground built by public money and getting a massive boost up unfairly and contrary to EU state aid provisions?

    Or is it too complicated to say...

    It has never been our position that we want to stop West Ham playing there. They are welcome to it. We simply want them to pay more, and the taxpayer to pay less. That is achievable by more than one route, including the possibility that a new State Aid complaint could be made to the European Commission.

    Which reminds me @TelMc32 , the lawyer from Mishcon was there today as a very interested observer. A very genial chap he is too. He of course did not want tosay what his exact interest was but he was very happy to allow us to believe it is serious. And someone has to pay for his several hours spent there.

  • Good evening gents. Well I guess many of you had an interesting day out. God knows why you'd think I'd bother myself with attending such a non-event. After all, even if this finds in favour of the FOI declaration the LLDC will simply take it to the upper chamber to delay further while they complete the naming rights deal and negotiate with Spurs (I think anyone would have to be very silly to think that David Levy would not try to see what he could get out of this). That comment by Murphy "In any commercial negotiation, it’s very difficult if you’ve got an anchor” relates exactly to that, I'll wager, and nothing to do with West Ham.

    As for hoping that West Ham are trying to claim they have a veto, that has been rubbished for months. It was just stupid bragging by Brady in her Sun column, which was immediately quashed by David Sullivan (see thfclatest.com/2014/11/04/spurs-to-play-in-olympic-stadium/. "Speaking on Sky Sports News, David Sullivan admitted that West Ham can only prevent another club using the Olympic Stadium during the Hammers inaugural season of 2016/17". Even so, with the IAAF World Championships taking place up until early August in 2017, and the Premier League season likely to start early because of the timing of the 2018, a share may not be logistically possible in any case. Levy of course knows that there is no veto (see below) but remains hell bent on Wembley with Stadium MK as second choice, despite the desire of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Club wishes to remain in London.

    Furthermore, the un-redacted parts of the contract made clear the process by which West Ham can try to stop a share; in that case, it goes to an 'external adjudicator' who will determine whether the use would materially affect the pitch. With lots of rugby and football teams already happily sharing using the Desso grass system, any such complaint would be easily thrown out. I would have thought you all would have known this having read the thing.

    Anyway, i'm glad you feel good for your 'victory' today. All the best.
  • Well done Prague, and also those that were able to support you at the hearing.
  • I am a bit unclear as to what a good result is here. Is it embarrassing disclosure of behind the scenes deals leading to embarrassment of those involved, if so very good.

    Is there any real possibility of preventing the Hammers from taking the ground built by public money and getting a massive boost up unfairly and contrary to EU state aid provisions?

    Or is it too complicated to say...

    It has never been our position that we want to stop West Ham playing there. They are welcome to it. We simply want them to pay more, and the taxpayer to pay less. That is achievable by more than one route, including the possibility that a new State Aid complaint could be made to the European Commission.

    Which reminds me @TelMc32 , the lawyer from Mishcon was there today as a very interested observer. A very genial chap he is too. He of course did not want tosay what his exact interest was but he was very happy to allow us to believe it is serious. And someone has to pay for his several hours spent there.

    Thanks Prague, sorry I wasn't very precise, what I meant by West Ham taking the ground more or less for free was as you stated, they get a massive ground, paid for by the taxpayer, on overly favourable terms which gives them an unfair advantage over everyone else.

    I wasn't sure how the action today, even if successful, could prevent that from happening. I guess this is about finding the information that can then assess if there are further actions that can be taken rather than this being the final action? That was what I was asking.

    A good result would be disclosure of information that allows future actions which could ensure West Ham pay a market price for the facility.
  • Well at least we agree in one sense that publication in full is the right and fair course of action. It will, I am quite confident, exonerate West Ham in terms of contribution to stadium revenues, and then all those dummies can go go back to where they came from.

    With the stadium naming rights partner now close to being announced there is only one key interested player who'd like to see the contract published immediately, and it's good to hear that Prague retains such cordiality with their agents.
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  • Well done Richard.
    What does your best friend Barry Hearne think about today ?
    ;-)

    I'll ask him at the darts :-)

    Snooker him in a corner until he answers.
  • edited January 2016

    redman said:

    Prague, on behalf of us all well done. You make the point about being expensive for us. I, and am sure many more, would gladly chip in. How are the costs being funded?

    The cost of the Tribunal and indeed the LLDC's expensive legal advice (£21,000 ) is met by you, the taxpayer.

    My costs, don't worry about it. I need to come home and see my ageing Mum, and can park the travel costs as a business expense.

    So in total, the taxpayer is paying roughly:


    £1,100,021,000
  • Gavros, is this naming rights deal that is close the one from about a year ago?

  • The difference between this article and that in the Guardian, is that the Guardian journo was actually present at the hearing...:-)



  • in simple terms, at Half-time, what's the score ?
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