While Spurs & WH Stadium Fight...Orient's Future?

ORIENT OFFICIAL SITE STATEMENT

Club Statement - Olympic Stadium

Posted on: Tue 25 Jan 2011

Statement issued by the board of directors of Leyton Orient FC on Sunday January 23 2011….

ONE of the most important decisions in the 130-year history of Leyton Orient Football Club may be made next week - and it is a decision over which the Club has no control.

The decision of the Olympic Park Legacy Company to award the use of the London 2012 Olympic Stadium in legacy to either West Ham United or Tottenham Hotspur will have grave implications on the future of London's second-oldest Football League Club and threaten our proud traditions as a community-based Club.

The impact on Leyton Orient will be huge. The prospect of excess capacity leading to discounted tickets and the broader appeal to floating fans of a more high-profile club threatens to swamp us.

A huge question mark hangs over our long-term viability at Brisbane Road with the move of another professional football club to within a mile of what has been our home since 1937.

It is tragic to think that the true legacy of the 2012 Olympic Games could be the death of one of football's most-established community Clubs. Is that something those in the corridors of power are prepared to shoulder the responsibility for?

The Club has appealed to the Premier League and the Football League, both of whom would be in breach of their own regulations if they were to sanction a move for either West Ham United or Tottenham Hotspur, but the silence is deafening.

We've done things the right way. We haven't gone in to administration and cheated our way in to staying in business; we've invested in our community reaching over 130,000 people per year across six boroughs; we've invested in our youth programme giving local kids a chance; we've modernised our stadium by re-building three stands; we pay our bills and our wages on time and we always will.

The media write about West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur. No consideration is given to Leyton Orient. The powers that be want to brush us under the carpet and suppress our views but we will not allow that to happen.

Where does the Mayor of London Boris Johnson sit on this issue? Could he sleep at night knowing that those he has entrusted the future of east London to have betrayed so many of their people by damaging, potentially irreversibly, something that means so much to them?

And what of the Premier League and Football League? They both have a regulation which states their Boards shall only grant consent to a member Club to move to another ground which 'would not adversely affect Clubs having their registered grounds in the immediate vicinity of the proposed location'.

Brisbane Road sits one long goal-kick from the Olympic Park, there is no question that it is within the 'immediate vicinity'. Surely their Boards will recognise this at their respective meetings when the application to move ground comes in from either West Ham United or Tottenham Hotspur?

All parties must endeavour to find a solution which will satisfy all parties and whilst we are sure there will always be a Leyton Orient we can't take it for granted, sit back and be steamrollered out of existence. At this time, our voice must be heard.

www.leytonorient.com/page/NewsDetail/0,,10439~2273878,00.html



And some stadium background

TELEGRAPH/Paul Kelso

London 2012 Olympics: football was ruled out of Games legacy by Olympic board in 2006

The seeds of the current uncertainty over the future use of the Olympic Stadium were sown in 2006, when the Olympic authorities ruled out deals with West Ham or Tottenham in favour of legacy that was to prove financially unsustainable.

London 2012: Football was ruled out of Games legacy by Olympic board in 2006

Within 18 months of winning the right to stage the Games the Olympic Board had rejected offers from both clubs, and instead planned to reduce the £500 million stadium to a 25,000-seat mixed-use arena with a permanent track.

The desire to find an alternative to top-flight football even led to the Olympic Board, led by Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone, explicitly ordering consultants working on the stadium business model to ignore Premier League football.

The result, according to documents seen by Telegraph Sport and interviews with sources involved in the process, was that London committed to a stadium legacy that it could not deliver without public subsidy.

Only when Livingstone had been replaced in office by London mayor Boris Johnson was the possibility of a Premier League club occupying the stadium reopened, and next month the Olympic Park Legacy Company will, after all, choose between Tottenham and West Ham.

The design constraints of the commitment to a 25,000-seat arena mean that neither is an ideal solution. West Ham, bidding jointly with Newham Council, would retain the track, meeting London's bid commitment, but there are doubts as to the viability of football being played in major athletics arenas, and the club's financial position.

Tottenham claim to offer a more financially robust solution, but only at the price of ripping up the athletics track, a step too far for many, including Lord Coe.

Richard Caborn, sports minister at the time of the negotiations with West Ham, said that the failure to engage with football earlier was a missed opportunity.

"I think we dropped the ball," he said. "We went around the world after winning the Games and looked at all the previous Olympic hosts, from Sydney to Barcelona, and they all said the most important thing is to find an anchor tenant.

"In my view that was always going to be football, and there was an opportunity missed. We did a lot of work with West Ham, who were willing to take on the stadium but wanted retractable seats built into the design. They would have put money in, kept athletics in without compromising on the football side, and it was a win-win situation."

The crucial decisions were taken in the 18 months following the July 2005 victory in Singapore, when the commitment to athletics, the desire to start construction, and pressure from the Treasury to cap the rising budget combined to ensure the 25,000-seat option was favoured.

Both Tottenham and West Ham approached the Olympic Board in 2006 to discuss a potential move. Tottenham, who wanted to get rid of the track, were first to be dismissed.

Club sources claim they were told they would have to cover the cost of demolishing and rebuilding, plus the redevelopment of Crystal Palace –a central part of their current bid.

Former government sources say the bid was rejected primarily because of concerns raised by Sir Ian Blair, then commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who advised he would not grant Spurs a licence because of the potential for trouble caused by fans crossing into West Ham's territory.

Tottenham withdrew their interest in late 2006, but West Ham remained interested. In January 2007 they made a formal offer, a copy of which has been seen by The Daily Telegraph, to take on the stadium if Stade de France-style retractable seats could be built into the initial designs.

The offer, sent by West Ham's finance director Nick Igoe to the ODA's stadium project manager, Ian Crockford, states that the club were interested in taking on the arena if the design brief could be amended, and would put up £100 million to buy the stadium and consider a revenue sharing agreement.

"Our favoured solution would be a stadium without retractable seating which could cover much of the running track in football mode but be withdrawn when in athletics mode," Igoe wrote. "I can confirm our chairman's [Eggert Magnusson] offer of £100 million as a capital payment in order to acquire the stadium."

At a private meeting between club chairman Magnusson, Jowell and Livingstone in January 2007, the bid was rejected. The Olympic board formally dismissed the offer the following month, with Caborn the only observer present arguing for it to be pursued further.

Jowell said that West Ham's bid was rejected because it was financially flawed. "The West Ham bid was closed off because we were going to have to put in about £97 million more of public funds to make it work," she said.

"West Ham simply did not have a proper plan. We could not get them to commit to finance it, there was no business plan. Nobody took their offer seriously."

The rejection of West Ham coincided with the Olympic Board taking receipt of a report from consultants PMP Legacy. Remarkably, PMP was told to ignore Premier League football and look only at other sports including rugby and athletics, and lower league clubs including Leyton Orient.

Peter Mann, then executive chairman of PMP, told The Telegraph it received enough interest from clubs, including Wasps and Orient, to make them believe the 25,000-seat option was viable.

Unfortunately the board's confidence in the PMP model was misplaced, and did not withstand concrete negotiations with potential tenants, or the economic downturn.

The ODA, which commissioned the report, has consistently refused requests to publish the PMP report and rejected a Freedom of Information request, citing commercial confidentiality.

Orient chairman Barry Hearne insists he made it clear that he would not countenance playing in the stadium with a permanent track, and rugby clubs including Wasps and Saracens could not be persuaded.

Even among Olympic sports there was no demand. The British Olympic Association hoped to create an "Institute of Sport" with the stadium at its heart, but governing bodies were reluctant to relocate to London without guarantees over future costs and access to facilities.

With no sign of the 25,000-seat option being viable, the ODA had no choice but to return to football, and West Ham were approached to see if they could be persuaded to take on the stadium at a 60,000 capacity with running track. The Icelandic owners said no.

West Ham's new owners, David Gold and David Sullivan, have now returned with essentially the same offer, and Jowell is among those who believe, it will vindicate her approach.

"It is a great shame that we have only football clubs at the table but I firmly believe that none of the community and legacy uses built into the West Ham-Newham bid would have been there without the approach we took. If they get the stadium it will be a great result for the project."

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/8282275/London-2012-Olympics-football-was-ruled-out-of-Games-legacy-by-Olympic-board-in-2006.html