West Ham get the Olympic Stadium

[uttoxram75]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21889864

 

 

West Ham will be anchor tenants for the Olympic Stadium after the government agreed to put in an extra £25m towards the costs of converting the venue.

The additional money takes the Treasury's contribution to around £60m.

Adapting the stadium could cost between £150m and £190m.

But the deal was secured only after West Ham agreed to increase their own funding of the project by £5m, to £15m. They will move in from August 2016 and pay around £2m a year rent.

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“

We will only go there if it is fit for use. I won't go there if I have to look over a running track. But I believe we are in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Let's face it - they've built a stadium, albeit the wrong shape and size

”

David Gold

West Ham co-owner, speaking on 4 March

Under conversion plans, the roof will be extended and the seating capacity reduced from 80,000 to 60,000, with a retractable system allowing the venue to be converted from an athletics arena to football stadium within days.

Seats will slide over the running track to bring West Ham fans closer to the action.

The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) will begin work on the roof in the autumn and officials hope it will be ready for the autumn of 2015 - in time for the Rugby World Cup.

After that the stadium will close again to reconfigure the stadium's lower seating bowl and re-open in time for West Ham to start playing their games there in August 2016.

Although West Ham were appointed preferred bidders by the LLDC three months ago, there were still fears the agreement could collapse over how to finance the transformation of the stadium.

Initially the club had been reluctant to pay anything, but over time they increased their contribution to £10m and are now prepared to pay £15m.

The rest of the money will be drawn from a range of sources, including London Mayor Boris Johnson's budget, a £40m loan from Newham Council and around £20m of borrowings by the LLDC.

To guarantee the 99-year lease, West Ham also had to agree to pay a proportion of any future sale of the club back to the LLDC.

Johnson argued that the move into the stadium significantly enhanced West Ham's value and that the public purse should share in any profits generated from a sale by owners David Gold and David Sullivan.

In response, West Ham have agreed to pay a one-off windfall back to the LLDC if they sell the club in the next 10 years. West Ham say that is a sign of Gold and Sullivan's long-term commitment to the club.

The deal will be a huge relief to the mayor and the government, who feared the stadium could become a major drain on taxpayers.

Breakdown of conversion funding

Government: Around £60m

 

Loan from Newham Council: £40m

 

LLDC loan: £20m

 

West Ham: £15m

 

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

 

As well as £2m-a-year in rent, the club will share catering and hospitality revenue with LLDC but it is understood West Ham will take all ticket and merchandising income.

Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn is seeking a judicial review of the decision but the LLDC is confident that will not stall the process.

Sources insist Hearn is contesting the LLDC's failure to do a joint deal with the Premier League team and Leyton Orient, rather than the decision to place West Ham in the stadium.

The LLDC and West Ham will now work together to sell the naming rights for the stadium to a major sponsor.

Initial talks with the International Olympic Committee and the British Olympic Association have begun on whether they can use the word "Olympic" in any future naming of the venue.

This is thought to be extremely unlikely unless the sponsor of the stadium is also one of the Olympic movement's big commercial partners.

[ramexpat]

60 million of taxpayers money compared to 15million from West Ham

[Gritstone Ram]

they ought to turn the seats around. might make better viewing.

[Gaspode]

I used to have quite a soft spot for the Hammers in the old days (Brooking etc), but they've become one of my most detested teams - the Tevez affair, horrible owners, horrible manager, horrible fans....the list goes on

Hope it all goes horribly wrong and they end up in front of 10,000 fans down in League 1...

[ramexpat]

When Spurs were also bidding for the stadium a few year ago didnt they want to move the seats closer and remove the race track but its was said that the track would never be removed and now they are removing it

[rynny]

The whole thing stinks like some dirty old men who make money off selling ographic items, oh, wait a minute.....

[needles]

Disgusting and disgraceful outcome. Government money supporting commercial sports teams?

Similar but on a bigger scale to snotts ccc getting bent bridge underwritten by the council.

 

Sport as fair contest is dead and buried in the country, and as a result I'm losing interest rapidly.

[EastKentRam]

Quite sad really, as much as i dislike West Ham, I really do like going to Upton Park.

 

The area is an absolute **** hole, but the roads and buildings around the ground are so tight and congested it feels like a big match day when you're there. It's hard to explain, just feels like a proper football area. 

 

When we played them under lights last year, there was a real atmosphere in and around the ground even for such a menial game.

[DCFCfranco]

Well. I look forward to watching them fill it.

[abertawe_ram]

Why bother refurbishing the thing? No need to move the fans closer to the pitch, Allardyce has them hoofing the ball so high in the air it's probably better that they sit further back. And extend the roof? Why bother? If it rains, let the vvankers get wet.
Whole thing is a big feck off waste of money.
My views may be slightly biased, I fecking hate West Ham.
Drunken rant over

[davenportram]

I hope they get relegated the season before taking up residency.

£2m a year rent for 99 years that's a lot (hope its linked to inflation and goes up each year) - wouldn't it have been cheaper to build one themselves and not pay a third party and actually have an asset?

if they sell the club within 10\ years they have to pay the government

[Anag Ram]

It's like giving the Vatican to a Sunday school. 

[RamNut]

That is the problem with the Olympics which has happened time after time.

Countries spend millions building facilities for which there is no real demand.

It was triumphed as the nation getting a state of the art venue for athletics and therefore thats what it should be.

If the government has to subsidize it as an athletics venue then so be it.

Clearly they were desperate to get rid of it.

And what Newham Council are doing spending £40m on it is even stranger.

How many classrooms would that build?

[Brammie Steve]

That is the problem with the Olympics which has happened time after time.

Countries spend millions building facilities for which there is no real demand.

It was triumphed as the nation getting a state of the art venue for athletics and therefore thats what it should be.

If the government has to subsidize it as an athletics venue then so be it.

Clearly they were desperate to get rid of it.

And what Newham Council are doing spending £40m on it is even stranger.

How many classrooms would that build?

This has to be a first!

A nut talking of breaking the Hammers.

[Uptherams]

£2m rent a year for 99 years and a share of catering and hospitality revenue for the life of the lease would probably almost cover the entire cost of the Olympic stadium and conversion. Let's also wait and see what happens with stadium naming rights. £5m a year minimum for that. One way or another this will not be a white elephant. These plans should have been in place from the beginning. 

[Duracell]

In most countries, local councils and governments recognise the importance of sports venues and do all they can to make sure the community has something to be proud of. It's ridiculous in this counry, my local council are so arsey they'll never even grant planning permission for Silverstone to build permanent granstands, so Britain's F1 track has poxy temporary granstands. Kettering Town has also moved to Corby because the local council did nothing, and now the arse-end of nowhere also doesn't have it's own football team, as well as absolutely nothing else.

 

So when the government does finally get involved like this, it gets me even more angry. Why is the government getting involved in moving a club away from its natural home to a stadium completely unsuitable to football, ripping up the Olympic legacy (literally) which we were supposed to have and the promise we were meant to keep when we got the games, and plonking this club right on someone else's patch? It doesn't make sense.

 

I'd rather no one got the stadium. Turn it into a museum for the Olympics. Have the European Grand Prix in London and incorporate it as part of the track. Or let someone have it at their own cost. But for goodness sake, don't pay for West Ham and their fans to move in....