The London Legacy Development Corporation have granted West Ham United FC preferred use of the Olympic Stadium starting in 2016. I will outline the key points of the agreement below:
#1 - The Stadium was built at a cost of approximately £500 million pound
#2 - West Ham will pay a fixed rent of £2 million per year for the next 99 years.
#3 - The stadium will undergo £150 million worth of renovation (changing the seating capacity and layout of the stadium) to make it more suitable for football matches
#4 - West Ham will pay £15 Million pounds towards the above mentioned renovations while the city will pay for the difference.
#5 - All gate receipts (i.e. money from attendance) will be pocketed by West Ham
#6 - The Olympic Stadium was promised to be kept "as a legacy" to help support sports in the community but the League One club Leyton Orient (a club that is closest to the stadium) has been muscled out of negotiations and their request to share the ground have fallen on deaf ears.
So, let's recap: West Ham have been given a state-of-the-art stadium worth over £650m for... £15m + £2m a year in rent. In other words, the city (and by extension the citizens of England) are essentially paying for West Ham's stadium. It would take 325 years of the rent just to pay off the face value of the stadium right now. Not to mention that a fixed rate of 2 million per year for a prime piece of real estate is essentially peanuts and for the next 99 years? Accounting for inflation that's like buying a mansion for for the price of a 98 Honda Civic. Moreover, the rent will easily be covered by gate receipts for a 60,000 seat stadium.
As a fan of a club that built it's own stadium with it's own means and has had sacrifice so much over the past decade to pay off fixed debts that will end in 2022, I find this whole sitaution abhorable. Aside the questionable morality of forcing the country's citizens to pay for a club's stadium, this whole thing flied in the face of competitive equality. Why is it that one club should be given such a massive handicap whil others have had to toil hard to do it on their own?
You may think I'm being too harsh (although I would disagree) but I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter.
Vendetta
12 years ago
The London Legacy Development Corporation have granted West Ham United FC preferred use of the Olympic Stadium starting in 2016. I will outline the key points of the agreement below:
#1 - The Stadium was built at a cost of approximately £500 million pound
#2 - West Ham will pay a fixed rent of £2 million per year for the next 99 years.
#3 - The stadium will undergo £150 million worth of renovation (changing the seating capacity and layout of the stadium) to make it more suitable for football matches
#4 - West Ham will pay £15 Million pounds towards the above mentioned renovations while the city will pay for the difference.
#5 - All gate receipts (i.e. money from attendance) will be pocketed by West Ham
#6 - The Olympic Stadium was promised to be kept "as a legacy" to help support sports in the community but the League One club Leyton Orient (a club that is closest to the stadium) has been muscled out of negotiations and their request to share the ground have fallen on deaf ears.
So, let's recap: West Ham have been given a state-of-the-art stadium worth over £650m for... £15m + £2m a year in rent. In other words, the city (and by extension the citizens of England) are essentially paying for West Ham's stadium. It would take 325 years of the rent just to pay off the face value of the stadium right now. Not to mention that a fixed rate of 2 million per year for a prime piece of real estate is essentially peanuts and for the next 99 years? Accounting for inflation that's like buying a mansion for for the price of a 98 Honda Civic. Moreover, the rent will easily be covered by gate receipts for a 60,000 seat stadium.
As a fan of a club that built it's own stadium with it's own means and has had sacrifice so much over the past decade to pay off fixed debts that will end in 2022, I find this whole sitaution abhorable. Aside the questionable morality of forcing the country's citizens to pay for a club's stadium, this whole thing flied in the face of competitive equality. Why is it that one club should be given such a massive handicap whil others have had to toil hard to do it on their own?
You may think I'm being too harsh (although I would disagree) but I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter.