Re: O/T West Ham Get Olympic Stadium
British taxpayers have just handed West Ham a stadium worth half a billion pounds... where's my bit of this £630m council house?
Dear West Ham
Could you please send me the part of the Olympic stadium that I now own? It seems the Government has given you millions of pounds of public money and, as a result, I have bought a piece of your new arena. I’d like that back, thank you.
Can you believe it? British taxpayers have just handed a Premier League football club a stadium worth half a billion pounds which, in these austere times, you might think is charity enough.
But not content with that almighty handout, the Government is throwing another £25million of public money in their direction to ensure the interior fittings, including new seats and a roof, are to their liking when they move into their gigantic new council house.
At the end of the process, West Ham will receive more than £630m of real estate with huge commercial potential and donate only £15m and £2m a year in rent for the privilege.
Now read those numbers again and tell me if you ever expect to understand the world of economics? I’m not sure I do but I know when I’m being ripped off.
They are getting the keys for less than it would cost to buy an average left-back. Worse still, they moaned about handing over even this meagre amount.
If West Ham wanted to put in retractable seats and modify the original design they should have paid for the changes themselves. Boris Johnson and Co had done enough for the Hammers to accept the stadium as it was, even with its flaws.
But Mayor Boris has buffooned his way through this whole process. Terrified he might be left with a ‘white elephant’, he caved in to every whim and moan. Friday’s press conference was so obsequious, I half expected him to unveil the new centre-forward the taxpayer had bought for the club.
‘It’s a deal people said could never be done,’ he jabbered. No they didn’t. They just hoped it wouldn’t be done quite like this.
It is excellent the stadium is being utilised, yet the terms are laughable. Let me put West Ham’s contribution in context. They could conceivably recoup their £2m rent within three or four home games with a capacity of 54,000.
It also grates to hear they made a song and dance about stumping up £15m towards the revamp when West Ham handed out cheques worth £4.4m to football agents last season alone.
The vice-chairman of West Ham, Karren Brady, declared: ‘We accept the cost of making this into a world-class stadium has come from the Government, but we hope over 99 years we can pay that back.’
.
I’m not sure the British taxpayer is going to be won over by a polite ‘thank you for the stadium’ card accompanied by an IOU for £600m dated a century from now, but you could only admire the cheek.
No word as yet, either, on what will happen to West Ham’s current Upton Park home when they move to Stratford? If it is sold off, does the money go back to the Treasury? Let us hope so. But experience suggests it might not be an idea to hold your breath, not even for a hundred years.
Let us hope this is not our Olympic legacy. The country is nigh on broke. Hospitals are being closed, schools cannot afford books and soldiers are sent into combat with weaponry that is about as useful as a mop, should anything as inconvenient as actual fighting break out. Yet a member of one of the most lucrative sporting institutions in the world is effectively receiving a huge benefit handout from the State.
The Premier League is awash with cash. The new television deals are worth upwards of £5.5 billion over three years and that windfall will be shared between just 20 clubs. Even the bottom club will pick up £60m merely for turning up for one season.
The Premier League’s revenue last year — give or take a prawn sandwich — was £1,286,000,000.00. I’ve included the row of noughts because it’s easy to talk about a million here and a billion there without realising the true scale of the numbers involved.
This is big money. Contrast it with headlines in the newspapers warning half-a-million families were losing childcare vouchers, gas bills were going up 15 per cent and tax rises could be on the way unless someone hits George Osborne around the head with that red briefcase.
Let me bring it closer to home and ask you a question. How do you plan to finance your pension portfolio? Is the answer...
a) My what?
b) With a winner at Newbury today.
c) By selling a kidney.
Many people are skint and resentful. The economic pinch has turned into something more bruising.
And with perfect timing, Danny Boyle, the man behind the spectacular London 2012 opening ceremony, suggested the Olympic spirit had been killed by the recession. Killed? It was more a contract assassination. Then a few million more was slapped on the table to try to dispose of the body as quietly as possible.
So a football club owned by two multi-millionaires not only picked up a stadium for next to nothing, but also persuaded others to make it even more profitable for them.
This is a fine deal for West Ham, but not for the people of Sheffield, who saw their Don Valley athletics stadium close this month. Or for little Leyton Orient, who fear going bust with this tax-funded goliath on their doorstep. Or for supporters across the country sitting in their own decrepit grandstands. They all paid for this new ground, though.
So well done to David Gold and David Sullivan, men who originally built their fortunes on profits made from the pornographic industry. I’d say they pulled it off, but it might be misconstrued. At least they should be able to count the cash from here on in.
I just wonder what their next money-spinning product might be? My suggestion is a film entitled The Great British Taxpayer — Shafted!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...m-Olympic-Stadium-wheres-share-Des-Kelly.html
:lol:
