Brentford fans are only too aware of the struggle some clubs go through to secure the land, and indeed raise the finances, to build a new community stadium – it would be fair to say that the Bees have had to battle tooth and nail over the Lionel Road project and there has been little in the way of charity in TW8.
In contrast, West Ham United appear to have won the proverbial lottery in being ‘gifted’ the Olympic Stadium, and the heavily subsidised costs of converting the Stratford plot for football use – of the £272m redevelopment costs, West Ham United have only had to chip in £15m.
This Tax Payer windfall has prompted the Charlton Athletic Supporters Trust to start lobbying MPs in an attempt to force a re-evaluation of West Ham’s rental contract, which they also feel is a commercial threat to bot the Addics and Leyton Orient.
If you are interested in offering your support, more details can be found at http://www.castrust.org.
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The stadium is being converted for multiuse purposes.. not just for west ham.
try opening your eyes & look past the fact west ham will be playing there. Lease gives the club 25 games a season, after that £100.000 per game.
west ham only get between 10-15% of catering, only a low amount of stadium naming rights. Athlectic pay nothing, rugby world cup…. £0,
100.000 free tickets for Newham Council & anyone can hire the stadium in the summer. Stadium will pay for it self. If you looking into details, West Ham do not lease the stadium of the Gov or LLDC, but from another company.
of course the stadium could have been converted into a 25.000 seat stadium (at tax payers expence) & left to rot & be used for half a dozen times ayear..
Crystal Palace has become run down because of lact of use.
But lets all jump on the band wagon & winge about it.
What would you like to have seen happen to the Olympic Stadium? Would you like to see it derelict and rotting? No West Han Utd, no stadium legacy. It just happens to be WHU’s gain. If it were built in Twickenham you would have jumped on it. WHU didn’t ask for to be built. They didn’t have any say in the absurd design. The didn’t even have to move in. The OlympicStadium needed a good tenant and WHU took advantage. That’s business. It seems to have testers lot of jealousy in the process.
The Olympic Stadium would be a White Elephant without premiership football to support it. Yes, West Ham are getting a good deal but at least they are making the stadium viable. Without WHUFC it would be moth balled!
What a load of cobblers. Firstly Its NOT West Hams Olympic Stadium. Secondly the LLDC put its rental out for tender and West Ham won after due process. It was debated in all courts in the country and in Europe and nothing was found to be wrong. Only 2 other football clubs were interested Orient ( along with their 5,000 fans ) and Spurs who wanted to tear the place down. West HAm won fair and square and it was the LLDC that dictated the terms, not West Ham.
But everybody is forgetting the rugby, cricket,and concerts that will be held there, also using the retractable seats and roof, for which they will contribute not a penny.
For the sake of sanity, it’s done. If the stupid government at the time built a stadium fit for use this wouldn’t be an issue. West ham couldn’t afford to pay much more their skint, still we could have left it as it was hey, looked lovely in ten years time full of weed of both variations. MOVE ON PLEASE
Will you please stop this bitterness towards West Ham; it’s just unbecoming football fans. West Ham will be renting a stadium (and giving up their ownership of Upton Park) that actually needs them as the core tenant. Who else is going to a) pay £100k per game, and b) fill it every fortnight?
The circumstances surrounding the redevelopment are nothing to do with West Ham; the damn place had no inside toilets or catering for the Olympics since the overall design was based on the flawed premise that athletics alone could sustain it, which is fanciful at best and deceitful bollocks at worst.
West Ham asre paying £15m towards the cost upfront, plus £100,000 per game (linked to inflation) for the 100 years lease.
Athletics UK get free use when they need it, Bruce Springsteen gets to play there tax-free, international rugby pays whatever is agreed as the going rate. I’m pretty sure if Orient (or Brentford, as unlikely as it might seem now) offer to pay £100k every ninety minutes they’d be welcome too, although I can understand West Ham (as the core football tenant) had precedence or a veto.
West Ham are being giufted nothing; removal of the roof and the top tier of seats was a decision by the ODA; West Ham offered to save the cost by buying brand new seasts for the communities that were going to receive the second hand ones but this was turned down as a key ‘legacy promise’.
That the Games were held in our back yard, that we are only sensible key tenant despite Barry Hearn’s protestations, that we’re the only club based in the borough of Newham, that the entire legacy proposal was bullshit is not our fault.
For £30m we could have built a new East Stand to take Upton Park to 55,000 and left the OS to rot waiting for an eventual athletics event to turn up. Whether it suits anyone else or not, West Ham’s was the best deal lomg term deal for everyone, including themselves.
Just get over it – and before the Charlton bitterness crew chime in, didn’t Gillingham air much the same complaint about your free Kent coaches? And as for transparency, wasn’t one of your recent transfer fees classified as ‘undisclosed’?
It’s just jealousy of the highest order. The next time Charlton need to borrow a ground to play a season’s games, don’t bother to round come asking West Ham again, you ungrateful hypocrites.