In a East End town, a dead end world
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 10:45AM So on the one hand you might agree that Levy's legal sniping has pushed West Ham United, the OPLC, UK Athletics and the Government all into a corner with Boris serving up cups of tea in panic discussing issues raised. Issues pertaining to fairness and the running track which concludes with the break down of the Brady bunch owning the OS out right. But there was no panic. More of a swift counter-move on a dirty chess board that needs binning.
Instead they'll (probably) get a 125 lease (as good as owning it), except its not as good as owning it in terms of potential corporate profit you'd make if you did, to name just one reason. The running track is supposedly now cast in stone to remain. Or is it? I'm sure over time it will disappear. They will find a reason (or add it to the small print of the new bid) and validate it and let's be honest, few will care. By that point, the NDP will be in full swing and Levy will be past bothering himself with further court room dramatics. Anyone who moves into the OS and retains its current structure is asking for trouble either way. No atmosphere with running track, no atmosphere without it. Its an athletics stadium, its not purpose built for football. If its leased, what chance of a complete overhaul of its structure? Unlikely.
Not sure anyone has 'won the day'. Look at the money spent in the original bidding process. There has been plenty of manoeuvring and posturing and politics. But little has changed. They always wanted WH to 'win' the OS. They used Tottenham to consolidate the bid but the fallout now means they just have to swagger on in as tenants.
Levy's legal push is now redundant so perhaps they have won after all. They've defused all the bad publicity. They can now agree a new proposal that we (Levy) can hardly object too. It was of course the original process we had issues with. Still, as someone pointed out to me, WH can hardly dump debt as an asset onto a stadium they do not have ownership of. Affordable as tenants, but not in the long term.
At least the media cant be arsed to prolong this tiresome saga by suggesting we might want to pay rent in East London. We'll have to wait to see what all the official statements detail.
The most prominent THFC question, in terms of Machiavellian tactics, is whether Levy still retains any cards to bolster the redevelopment in N17. The concern is, he might still wish to bite back. This is Levy. Shrewd, hard as rock. We still await to see whether the fight for admission on the original process is now dead.
End game in sight, right?
Or perhaps not. Read this article by Martin Cloake. There are still plenty of questions that require answering, relating to accountability.
We can all agree (no matter Lilywhite or Claret and Blue) that this has been an absolute mess.
Reader Comments (33)
One last shit or bust bid from ENIC on a take it or leave it to the Govt?
Non football types will (rightly) kick off now on the cost and no return, ENIC could be seen as the White Knight with a novelty sized cheque to buy it now?
Or not.
"This is Levy. Shrewd, hard as rock." hmmmm.
That's one interpretation, Naive and Childish is another.
Levy has tarnished THFC's reputation with this OS saga.
The track could not possibly disappear. People keep ignoring the whole point of the stadium: to host future athletics events. After the Olympics, Crystal Palace will disappear as an athletics venue - leaving only Stratford. The track cannot go anywhere. All those hotels, shops, roads, trains added to the area are for the track. Otherwise, they would have done it all in Crystal Palace. Stratford is the new home of British athletics. Full stop.
Davek - not sure how you can possible call Levy "naive"... He is successful & clever. If you disagree with his objectives, then probably you could claim him to be "misguided". Far from naive. I could name plenty of chairmen who are naive before you get to Levy.
we deserve to be reimbursed for our legal costs and our bid costs which is prob about 10m in all. west ham wont get a reimbursement snice their bid which led to all this action was illegal in the first place. still brady says they welcome the announcement by the govt, yeh course they do, shambles club looknig for a free lunch at my and all other tax payers expense.
This is the fault of the Government and moreso the Olympic Legacy loons (Seb Coe et al). No one cares about athletics so why ensure a white elephant by insisting on the running track etc. If you want the stadium for athletics then the 'athletics people' need to buy it. If they can't and the 'football people' can then it has to be for football (even if that is stretching the definition to its limits in West Hams case).
Anyone who really thought that this whole episode wasn't a carve-up has to be naive from the outset. The initial design was the fundamental error, and the costs of this ridiculous scheme will burden Londoners for many more years to come. The only viable proposal was the one Levy and his team put forward, which was encouraged by the OPC and GLC to make the WHUFC bid appear legal. They used the rivalry of the clubs and the furore that would create to detract from the real issue of mismanagement and West Ham's desperation to secure the stadium in order to sell Upton Park and reduce the clubs debts at a stroke.The stadium cannot operate as an athletics only venue and it's ridiculous to think otherwise, which is why the running track has to go sooner or later, it's just not going to happen during Boris' or Coe's tenure for obvious reasons. Levy was single minded and determined in his pursuit and rightly feels aggrieved at being used as a patsy as we're out of pocket and were justified in requesting a judicial revue despite being told otherwise by the powers to be. If Levy's naive what then are Brady, the two Davids and the OPC?
Out of curiosity, any prominent teams out there that have stadiums built with tracks in them? Ones that are successful?
Considering the government owns a lot of stadiums in Italy, I'm sure some have running tracks in them, no?
Love the poster who labelled Levy as naive. The man has always had Tottenham's interest at heart and is a successful self-made millionaire,. Still, suppose, if a poster has enjoyed greater success, it's their right to belittle Levy!!!! LMAO at the ego.Think I 'll err on the side of caution and continue to give Daniel Levy my backing!!!
I'm a fan of the machiavellian, after being 'invited to bid' being a smokescreen to ensure that awarding to West Ham was perceived to be on basis of 'value & legacy'. The whole thing has blown right up in their faces.
Levy doesn't just want his money back ,he wants those accountable, well, held to account for the whole fiasco.
As a lease the board cannot load debt onto the stadium as an asset (usually par for the course) and the maintaining of the track will be written in the contract, and tbh as long as Lord Coe is still breathing to pipe up every now and then, Hammers don't stand a chance in trying to get rid.
Let's hope NDP gets back on track, albeit I think holding fire for a few seasons before committing to a 25 year business model might be prudent, would love to start building tomorrow, but not at the expense of building up some success in the medium term.
Levy tried to block our move to the OS (not that I am totally in favour of that) but pushed too hard. It appears there are no gentleman in sports any more (I am speaking of on either side). Its great to have banter and all that but to try to financialy undermine another club for the sake of acquiring more tax payers money is taking things beyond football's unwritten law of permitted banter.
Levy should stick to looking after the benefit of your club and not look to bring your clubs reputation down just for the sake of MONEY and more MONEY.
So, West Ham, in all likelihood, now get the same stadium they were going to get, but this time the 50M cost of the redevelopment will be met by tax payers, not WHU!! Furthermore, the sale of Upton Park will eradicate most of their debt and the paltry £2M per year lease of a 60,000 seat stadium will ensure decent profits, even if the stadium is only half full.
Wow! And Barry Hearn thinks that's a victory for little Orient??
Even more of a stitch-up than last time and the biggest losers in all of this are us, the taxpayers - another 50M out of pocket. Or did I miss something??
The government need to encourage other parties to apply to lease the stadium: good luck with that. I'd love to see the spammers gazumped, however the whole process has been a charade thus far so why should it change now?
hammertime, our rep is fine, it's only hammers fans that peddle this fairytale that somehow THFC's good name has been dragged through the dirt. Our team graces the Prem + Europe, our chairman has the rep as the hardest, smartest operator in the game (a rep he is enhancing on an almost daily basis with recent sponsorship deals, position over Modric and success at making OPLC run for the hills) and we are consistently in the top 15 richest in the world (prob nearer the top 10 now after our CL run) and virtually debt free.
West Ham on the other hand..I mean do I need to spell it out? Championship club, kids for a quid, 80m in debt, the brady bunch, Avram, Lyundberg, Dyer, Neil, the Icelandics, Tevez, slagging off Spurs in the press saying you'll never deal with us again but then but then doing business with us (selling us Player of the Year for a steal 5m quid, taking Keane and bentley off our hands..ta v much!!), illegal partnership with Newham..the list is endless.
Money money? the game is about nothing else my cockles and whelks friend, your prob is that you tried and failed spectacularly just as the worst economic crash in history hit town. Hate to be patronisnig but that huge debt of yours aint gonna dissapear with Prem income let alone Champ income and you are never getting into the CL, so what does that add up to? I'll tell ya - administration and a rebirth with Ken Bates or Peter Ridsdale as chairman of WHUFC 2012 Limited.
Dixta,
In a nutshell fella. Loving your work lol.
ta spurious!
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/articles/olympic-stadium-111011.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=olympic-stadium-111011
Ominous.
So, does the tax payer demand a running track (WHUFC) or a big chunk of their money back (THFC)? Pressure will be on. Looks like Boris may have to stump up more than 17M to keep Spurs in Haringey. Is that Levy's end game?
essexian76 - you say that the track has to go sooner or later. Well, not with West Ham renting it. It cannot operate solely as an athletics track no - you are correct about that. However Britain needs an international standard athletics track. Every other country has one. Why is it that the World championships is held in Stockholm, Helsinki, etc... before they think about Britain? Finally Britain will have one and it MUST stay even if Leyton Orient or Dagenham and Redbridge end up renting it. Right now, West Ham will rent it, the track is free from any secret plots to rip up the track, and we have the best solution for all....apart from the hammers fans who should be given vouchers to help pay for binoculars...
Big Fish - we want our money back or something equal to it so that we 'disappear' from the OS landscape once and for all.
Levy is hardly naive. Nothing he does (based on this saga) appears unplanned and without contingencies. He probably knows their next move already.
The Levy doubters need to take a look back and realise that he has achieved everything that he has set out to do. He got us to be a big club again, he got us into the champions league. He is paving the way for a new stadium (this Stratford challenge is supporting that), and eventually he will sell Spurs as a much more marketable asset than it was as he joined. He said these things before they happened. So leave the guy to continue doing a great job....
Just reading the Official Spurs statement makes me smile. That boy Levy is a cute hure.
Spooky - Levy is a tactician for sure. He'll either win the Olympic stadium site or get more than £17M from Boris. I'm hoping for the latter as the area is desperate for the regeneration a new stadium will bring. As for Stratford and WHUFC? Stick one of these - http://bit.ly/p2NNNV - on top of the stadium and be done with it...
I wonder who the anonymous complainant was. I'll bet his first name was Daniel.
what happened to the outrageous breach of privacy laws "someone" from THFC alledgedly committed, evidence of which was being given to the Met, according to the WH website a few weeks ago? it's all gone quiet over there, and it's all gone quiet over there..
One thing that amazes me in reading through comments is that there are still people wandering around believing that athletics is BIG. This naff stadium will be full for a number of Olympic days. After that the only sound generally heard within it will be that of Sullivan and Gold talking over a few porn deals, easily heard above the East wind whistling through the trees, and the tumbleweed rolling by!! Has anyone ever checked the size of crowds for athletics events in this country? Has anyone ever noted how athletics events never score on TV and are hosted on channel 4, gradually going down and down? A 60,000 seater will never be filled again, let alone an 85,00 seater.
This whole saga has been an embarrassment to us and an insult to W.Ham
who over the years have been a decent footballing club that have produced
many good players.
Their current management are an equal insult to their loyal fans
who I have no quarrel with whatsoever.
Some of them are idiots but we have idiots of our own.
Levy is a very clever businessman who made an out of order
opportunistic land grab which distracted us from our true
destiny at the NPD.
Perhaps the road is clear now for us to get on with this project
without delay.
Reading through some various messege boards it seems as if people still think building stadiums is good for economic developement in an area. I know is America this myth has been debunked. Is this not true in England/Europe? I ask on here because most of the posters on here and Spookey himself seem knowledgable. Do you think a new Tottnehma stadium would help the Tottenham area (or any area) out economically?
David G,
People only believe that when they are trying to make it fit their argument.
This 'community' angle is a huge pile of shit. Levy has got no interest in the people of Haringey at all, but is only interested in making as much money as he can for as little outlay as possible. If his actions makes the NDP 'viable' again (was it really ever unvialble?) then I couldn't care less, just get the fuck on with it.
But to believe that the NDP will be anything other than an earner for ENIC is about as naive as believing that he was never serious about starting up Stratford Hotspur if given the opportunity.
I think the anonymous compliant was the breaking point for the government; Europe will look at the bidding process and call it the stitch-up it was. Levy has them by the balls I think.
Wet sham should be worried if they get it on the rent deal. They'll pay off their debts, but if they drop any further down the leagues and can't afford the rent, they won't have a home.
Hahahaha Levy "shrewd, a good businessman, has Tottenham's best interests at heart"
The man's a sheister and I don't in any way intend that as anti semitic, just a plain insult to the scumbag that he is !
illegally obtains bank records of officials at WHUFC and OPLC, demolishes businesses and houses with no regards to his local supporters then when he see's a quick buck goes for it...
He has dragged your club and its supporters names through the mud, and if you think he's been good for your club, well you won't think that in the future and if you do then you are stupid.
I don't know who will get the OS and couldn't care less but I hope Levy gets sent behind bars where he belongs !
Levy's a Crim : mate, you need to bump up the oxygen and your ADHD medication.
http://www.westhamtillidie.com/2011/10/11/hammers-olympic-move-lies-in-tatters/
Apparently Brady played a stroke of genius and Spurs fans are squirming. And West Ham have won.
I'm a tad confused.