That's why it's still affectionately known as the council house.

Yeah, that's the main problem with it. I went there for a gig, a couple of months back. As a stadium, it's impressive, but doesn't seem particularly suited to football. It's too round.


It's not 'their' stadium, is it? I thought that they were just tenants, paying rent.

IIRC the Premier league paid £1m to allow their youth teams in it.

Its a bit like me giving you a house for 100 years, you have to pay a peppercorn rent though, and its just had a 200million refurb for free.

You can also sell your old house for a hundred million too, and keep the money.

Its hardly what anyone would call tenancy.

Please don't patronise me with analogies. I know what a tenancy is, and that's what they've got. You may not think that the terms are fair, but that's how it is.

Not a dig at all, just stating facts, the ground that Man City play their home games at is owned by the council, they similarly to West Ham, are the main tennents.

Hence why I said the other council stadium, as there are now two of them in the Premier League.

No need to be so aggressive on the forum, it was just an aid to explanation that's all

we are all friends here

Technically they are paying rent, but not in any sense that a regular person would understand. They were in effect gifted the stadium for 100 years, on the proviso they pay around 1 million a year.

It gave a private business a huge boost, this is why we will see other provincial towns and cities in the UK bidding for events to try and get a football stadium at a vastly reduced cost.

Look out for Sheffield, Liverpool or Bristol bidding for athletics tournaments in the future to try and do what city and west ham have done.

I didn't think that I was being 'aggressive'. It was a polite request. I even said 'please'.

I agree that West Ham have got an absolutely great deal, and can understand that some people might find it unfair. However, it's not 'their' stadium, which was the original point. For example, would they stand to benefit from any naming-rights deal, or would their presence actually benefit the owners of the ground, by assisting them to attract higher-paying sponsors?

if the taxpayer had asked West ham for a % of their previous ground sale, or an annual rent of £15 million a year, or for west ham to pay a proportion of the conversion costs that were over £200,000,000, or for west ham to pay the cost of policing football matches there, i probably would not feel so ripped off.

It is a huge scandal.

Fair enough. As I said, I can understand why some people may find it unfair.

Blame the London Legacy Development Corporation for being so terrified at the prospect of the Olympic Stadium becoming a white elephant that they basically rolled out the red carpet to the first club that showed an interest in using the place.

West Ham simply took advantage of the situation that the LLDC presented to them.

I thought there were a bunch of football clubs and other companies that showed an interest in moving into the sight?

I think I remember Tottenham wanted to demolish it or convert it to a football stadium, leaving us without a legacy sports stadium

Instead of thinking ahead and building it as a football stadium that could be used for athletics, we created an athletics stadium with a 2 week use period that then cost a further 200,000,000 to gift to west ham, and make it a poor football and a poor athletics stadium.

This has cost the taxpayer nearly a billion pounds!

They would only get a small part of any naming rights from memory (and that is reasonable as West Ham being there would be a massive reason to why someone would want naming rights). They also lose out on certain other income that you would get from your own ground.

Also they have only rented it out for a certain number of dates. They are not tenents really. Its not really a relevant comparison but much closer then a tenent one but what they have done is like many churches do nowadays and book out their hall to a regular client and booked it for a number of dates and made it a long term booking. The owner of the venue will charge you a booking fee (of course with anything else you do something like this long term you will get a cheaper deal) and they will also add further charges and also if for example the venue has a bar even though you are running the event the bar money goes to the owners

Yes West Ham have got a really good deal but no more then anyone else wanted to stick to the rules regarding moving into the ground. The other teams wanted to ignore contracts that was legally binding.

This is true.

Many Opponents of the move seemed to think it was acceptable to ignore legally binding contracts or use loopholes to get around them.

I really dont understand why Mourinho always feel the need to blast some players in the press.....always has to say something controversial...his personality off the pitch has become unpleasant over the years. I dont know...it just reeks of unprofessionalism to me at this point....urghhh I cant believe I used to like him . What exactly is his problem with Cristiano he keeps making off-handed comments about him ....not even cristiano but he also has taken jibes at other players over the years...

And so we begin the 2016/17 English football season at Craven Cottage in the rechristened EFL Championship.

Just flicked over to Sky Sports to watch a bit of the match and notice there's no screen graphic showing the score and game time ?

seems a bit odd.......

oh........it's just appeared.......

must be 10 minutes since I flicked over

What I don't understand is your obession with Mourinho. He's nothing to do with the club you supposedly support so why bother concerning yourself with it.

Jonjo Shelvey is a genuinely fascinating specimen.

A thumb for a head is going to mess you up.

Still, he's good at being angry, so, you know....

He is okay I suppose, being bald doesn't really help him in terms of looking his age, as he does look a lot older than he is.

Barcelona appear to still be on holiday but even so Liverpool are ripping them to bits impressively.

Huh?

How on earth is this adding anything to anything? Why bother posting to just say...."yea, he is bald and looks older"

What exactly does it bring?