da supremo： West Ham have received the backing of Sports Minister Hugh Robertson over their proposed plan to install the Olympic Stadium with retractable seating. What makes this latest step all the more baffling as that it completely flies in the face of the main issue of debate as to who the prospective owners of the Olympic Stadium would be after the events are over – the issue of the running track.
da pixbet： The Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) chose West Ham over rival bidder Spurs as its preference last week for the ownership of the Olympic Park Stadium site in Stratford.
The main issue of debate, one that caused public outrage among not only the athletics community but also the public, was Spurs’ plan to knock down the existing stadium and replace it with one to suit its own purposes. The irony that Spurs moved to do this out of necessity over concerns over the amount of seating in the stadium in its current form seems to have been completely lost on the OPLC and the Government.
The Olympic Stadium currently houses 80,000 seats, but 25,000 of those are temporary seats placed in especially for the Olympics. Spurs’ controversial plan to knock down the stadium and build their own, while simultaneously redeveloping Crystal Palace, the current home of UK athletics, would have meant that the North London club sought to build between a 60,000-65,000 seater stadium to make their move worthwhile.
I am not condoning Spurs’ actions at all with concerns to their bid. I felt at the time it was a risky move and I didn’t see the thinking behind knocking down an already purpose-built stadium. But their honesty and bravery to be so straightforward with their plans from the outset was commendable and as it turned out, to their own detriment.
West Ham’s latest move is a logical one and ensures that the club will see the financial benefits of hosting all sorts of entertainment and sporting events as well as not hampering the development of UK athletics. It does leave me wondering though, did Spurs not explore the retractable seating idea? And if so, why was it so readily ruled out?
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It became clear that before the decision was made public and with various leaks coming to light, that West Ham had all but sealed the stadium with their bid, even before the OPLC board had fully reconvened to make a final decision. Spurs were said to have only met 3 of the 5 main criteria with the main point hindering their chances the issue of legacy, which as you may understand, is why the OPLC were the used as the primary advisory board in the first place.
The rumour doing the rounds is that Spurs’ bid was never really in with a great chance and that they were only invited into the bidding process in the first place in order to flush out any negotiation hitches between the OPLC and the West Ham board. It appears that Spurs were misled from the very start and this latest move by West Ham only enhances the feeling that the Hammers were the preferred option from the outset.
West Ham received the unanimous support of the 14-strong OPLC board and the club’s Vice Chairman Karren Brady talked about the option in question saying: “It’s one of the many options we will now consider. We will work in the stadium with our designers on the changes.”
The stadium is set to undergo a £95m overhaul after the Olympics in order to make it a ground capable of hosting Premier League matches, but on the issue of cost Brady seemed enthusiastically surprised stating: “It is not as much money as you would think, around 10 per cent of the overall cost to give you a ballpark figure,” which would mean the retractable seating plan comes in at just under £10m – surely a cheaper option for Spurs given the cost of redeveloping Crystal Palace was in huge excess of this?
I argued in an earlier article on the issue of the Olympic Stadium that the debate had a few more twists and turns in it yet before it could finally be put to bed and this latest move by West Ham most certainly counts as one. The Spurs bid was strong, but it appears that West Ham’s ties to the community gave it the edge in the end. But with the retractable seating plan now being put under serious consideration by the West Ham board, the issue of legacy and of the running track has become a moot point.
If Spurs didn’t put the idea of retractable seating under serious consideration, then they can only have themselves to blame. However, if they did and it was perceived as cutting corners with concerns to the legacy issue by the OPLC, as I can only admittedly speculate, then they have most definitely hung out to dry.
The whole bidding process now just seems like one long coronation for West Ham, which was what the club had always initially expected. While this in itself this is no bad thing, with the strength of a rival bidder only serving to strengthen the quality of both bids, it appears as if the transparency behind the process has at times been sorely lacking. Seemingly by the day, the realisation that Spurs’ bid was doomed to failure from the very beginning begins to dawn and this latest re-drawing of the battle lines only serves to further that theory.
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