I am not against West Ham or that they got the Olympic Stadium.
I am just sad that the place had to be sold at all (or leased) it is going to cost £150 million to convert it to a football stadium, £15 million from West Ham.
It cost a few bob to build, the rent will be around £2 million per year.
What a shame we couldn't afford to keep it as a National Sports Stadium, available freely and to hire for lot's of sports and events, we have seen what it is capable of producing, wouldn't it have been great if the lesser funded sports could have booked it for large events, wouldn't it have been nice if we could have organised Roman games type events where many sports were represented on week long extraveganza's of table tennis, archery, volley ball and a host of other sports that cannot normally host large events.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go along and watch your favourite sport and see other sports taking place on the same day. It might be good if National Lottery funds could have been used to finance it along with revenue from hiring it out as an event location to the private sector.
What a training establishment it could have been and that could have made use of other facilities that were build just for the Olympics including accommodation.
What benefit it could have been to School and College sports capabilities. Surely there was a way.
For me I am not really bothered as the Olympic site served it's purpose for the greatest Olympics I have seen. Now is the time to move on and West Ham needed a new ground, and put their bid in and won. I feel sorry for Leyton Orient and it's owner as this is a clear breach of FA rules. The FA as per usual make the fucking rules up as they go along, or change them to suit their purpose when the needs arise to do so.
West Ham in my opinion will never fill this stadium and it was only a couple of years ago this club were languishing in the Championship with even fewer supporters turning up at the turnstiles. When West Ham continue to struggle to half fill the ground, maybe the FA will realise what a bad move this was. The FA's rules are very clear in writing with regards to location of grounds, and this move clearly breaches those rules. Still the FA are never ones to bother about their own rules and the breaking of them.
But I wish West Ham luck in it's new ground, even though they will never win jack shit in it.
The turnstile numbers are part of the massive conversion cost ........
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.
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.
will west ham fill it?
and to be honest who cares.
I think it is totally disgusting...that I will be paying so West Ham have the privledge of useing the stadium. I am not against it going to be a football stadium.....but £15million and £2million pound a year rent is a joke !!! the corporate facilities that they will be offer to are spellbinding. It should have been more like £50 million and £10 million a year rent !!! with revenue from old ground sell off, the money from sky, and the extra corporate packages, they would still have been racking it in. Also they should have been made to ground share with Leyton Orient.....who it is estimated will now fold within next 5 years !!!
I also to a degree feel sorry for the average west ham fan. They had a nice compact ground, local to them, with history and a pedigree......Now they have a faceless, souless gound, where they will actually struggle to see the pitch from bottom ( cheap ) tier of seats.
Massivly undersold.....Mr Gold and Sullivan....must be laughing their little cotton socks off at the deal !!!
The Olympic stadium must have been 20 years or more in the planning stage, it must have been part of every bid we have put forward to host the Olympics each term, you would have thought that with all that time someone could have thought about what to do with it after the Olympics.
Perhaps making West Ham do a deal with Leyton Orient to rent their old ground very cheaply would have been a bit of a sweetner to any deal WH got.
But I still think some form of National Sports Arena for fringe sports would have been feasable and something to be proud of, even a money earner with sponsorship deals and event rentals.
Star,
Its been a while to be honest since I went to Upton Park.....but I must I found it to be a proper football ground. Close to the pitch, and good atmosphere. As for the fans being happy about it....well if you listen to talk sport radio, you wouls see there is a large number that ain't happy. I know sometimes it is just the vocal unhappy ones that call in chat shows.....but not one said good for the fans deal. there are two winners from all this Gold and Sullivan. They have gone and done a great deal, to their credit, I am just upset that I out of my taxes will be supporting West Ham !!!
One of the songs in the montage of the opening ceremony was "I'm forever blowing bubbles"
Was this already a done deal. albeit subconsciously, before the tendering process to take it on after the Olympics...?