Post by Macmoish on Jun 22, 2011 6:48:21 GMT
Telegraph/Paul Kelso
Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient face crucial week in oppostion to West Ham's Olympic Stadium move
Tottenham and Leyton Orient will discover within days whether their challenge to West Ham's tenancy of the Olympic Stadium has been successful after a High Court judge spent the early part of this week considering their case.
Mr Justice Davis will rule on whether to grant permission for a judicial review of the decision to declare West Ham the preferred bidder after considering four separate applications from Tottenham and Orient.
The clubs are challenging the decision of the Olympic Park Legacy Company to select West Ham, the Government and London mayor Boris Johnson for endorsing that decision, and Newham Council's decision to agree to lend £40 million to a joint venture with West Ham that will convert and run the stadium.
If successful, Tottenham and Orient will be granted a full trial at which their challenge will be heard, which is likely to be no earlier than October.
The clubs have already won the first round of their challenge after the judged rejected an attempt by the Government and the mayor to skip the first phase of the judicial review and proceed straight to a substantive hearing in the autumn.
Tottenham and Orient objected, arguing that the judge should decide whether to grant permission for the challenge before hearing the substance of the case. That process began on Monday when Mr Justice Davis began studying several hundred pages of documents submitted by the various parties.
The legal challenges follow the acrimonious bidding war between Tottenham and West Ham that culminated in February with the Hammers being selected as preferred bidder.
Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy, desperate to develop a new stadium to keep pace with their Premier League rivals, believes he was encouraged to enter the Stratford bid, only to be used to drive a better deal out of West Ham.
Orient, meanwhile, believe that West Ham's move to within a mile of Brisbane Road will have a huge impact on attendances and the club's commercial prospects.
Orient are also challenging the Premier League's decision to approve West Ham's potential move to Stratford. An arbitration hearing will be held in the autumn.
The clubs' submissions, copies of which have been seen by Telegraph Sport, reveal that Tottenham and Orient are challenging both the process and the substance of the OPLC's decision, and Newham's financial support for West Ham which they say breaches European laws on state aid.
The submissions also reveal that one of the OPLC's grounds for rejecting Tottenham's bid was that their plans to renovate Crystal Palace as an alternative to retaining the athletics track was "inadequate and under-funded" and "does not provide a long-term sustainable athletics legacy".
Spurs reject this argument, insisting that they provided a £500 million guarantee to underwrite their bid and the Crystal Palace scheme.
The role of Newham in providing a £40 million loan to West Ham is at the heart of the challenge from Tottenham and Orient, while the legal process is understood to have exposed tensions between the OPLC and the council over the key issue.
Without the Newham loan, West Ham cannot afford to take on the stadium, but Tottenham and Orient argue that it is an inappropriate use of public money and was made unlawfully. Given this, they argue that West Ham's bid, which relies on council funding, is not financially secure and should not have been approved.
Tottenham argue that the Newham loan breaches EC laws banning state aid for private companies; that the council acted beyond its powers by entering into the deal with West Ham; and finally that Newham should have considered offering similar terms to them as they would then potentially have benefited from having two Premier League clubs in the borough.
Newham's defence is technical but crucial. The council argues that in fact it has not agreed to make the loan, but simply agreed that its chief executive could make the loan in future, if a suitable deal can be agreed with West Ham over terms and conditions.
Tottenham argue that this admission proves that the OPLC should not have approved West Ham, as without the Newham money the bid cannot satisfy the key criteria that any tenant has "committed, secure and agreed" funding.
Newham's claim that the loan has not been agreed is understood to have greatly concerned the OPLC, which based its decision to award West Ham the stadium on the fact that the funding was in place.
The council and West Ham are understood to have signed numerous documents to that effect.
The Daily Telegraph understands that the OPLC was so concerned that it has written to Newham demanding clarification of the status of the loan. The council is thought to have responded that the loan will be available to West Ham, but Tottenham and Orient will claim that that admission negates the council's defence on other points.
Describing the OPLC decision as "irrational, discriminatory and unfair", Tottenham accuse them of displaying bias towards West Ham in the bidding process and of secretly changing the rules by which the preferred bidder would be chosen.
Tottenham argue that in key areas they were not given vital information about how the decision-making process would be made, particularly in relation to the five criteria on which the final call was based.
The OPLC set out the criteria at the start of the process, stating that they were listed in order of importance, with the financial certainty of bidders rated the most important.
Spurs say that "without warning" the OPLC changed the rules during the final bidding, judging the criteria with equal weight. This, they say, worked against them as West Ham should have failed the financial test, and the areas they were "perceived as failing" – reopening the stadium rapidly and flexible usage – were third and fifth on the list.
They cite a letter from Johnson as evidence of the confusion, even among OPLC stakeholders. Explaining his decision to back West Ham, Johnson initially said the objectives "were listed in order of importance". In a subsequent letter however he has admitted that this was "a mistake and obviously so".
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/west-ham/8590551/Tottenham-Hotspur-and-Leyton-Orient-face-crucial-week-in-oppostion-to-West-Hams-Olympic-Stadium-move.html
Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient face crucial week in oppostion to West Ham's Olympic Stadium move
Tottenham and Leyton Orient will discover within days whether their challenge to West Ham's tenancy of the Olympic Stadium has been successful after a High Court judge spent the early part of this week considering their case.
Mr Justice Davis will rule on whether to grant permission for a judicial review of the decision to declare West Ham the preferred bidder after considering four separate applications from Tottenham and Orient.
The clubs are challenging the decision of the Olympic Park Legacy Company to select West Ham, the Government and London mayor Boris Johnson for endorsing that decision, and Newham Council's decision to agree to lend £40 million to a joint venture with West Ham that will convert and run the stadium.
If successful, Tottenham and Orient will be granted a full trial at which their challenge will be heard, which is likely to be no earlier than October.
The clubs have already won the first round of their challenge after the judged rejected an attempt by the Government and the mayor to skip the first phase of the judicial review and proceed straight to a substantive hearing in the autumn.
Tottenham and Orient objected, arguing that the judge should decide whether to grant permission for the challenge before hearing the substance of the case. That process began on Monday when Mr Justice Davis began studying several hundred pages of documents submitted by the various parties.
The legal challenges follow the acrimonious bidding war between Tottenham and West Ham that culminated in February with the Hammers being selected as preferred bidder.
Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy, desperate to develop a new stadium to keep pace with their Premier League rivals, believes he was encouraged to enter the Stratford bid, only to be used to drive a better deal out of West Ham.
Orient, meanwhile, believe that West Ham's move to within a mile of Brisbane Road will have a huge impact on attendances and the club's commercial prospects.
Orient are also challenging the Premier League's decision to approve West Ham's potential move to Stratford. An arbitration hearing will be held in the autumn.
The clubs' submissions, copies of which have been seen by Telegraph Sport, reveal that Tottenham and Orient are challenging both the process and the substance of the OPLC's decision, and Newham's financial support for West Ham which they say breaches European laws on state aid.
The submissions also reveal that one of the OPLC's grounds for rejecting Tottenham's bid was that their plans to renovate Crystal Palace as an alternative to retaining the athletics track was "inadequate and under-funded" and "does not provide a long-term sustainable athletics legacy".
Spurs reject this argument, insisting that they provided a £500 million guarantee to underwrite their bid and the Crystal Palace scheme.
The role of Newham in providing a £40 million loan to West Ham is at the heart of the challenge from Tottenham and Orient, while the legal process is understood to have exposed tensions between the OPLC and the council over the key issue.
Without the Newham loan, West Ham cannot afford to take on the stadium, but Tottenham and Orient argue that it is an inappropriate use of public money and was made unlawfully. Given this, they argue that West Ham's bid, which relies on council funding, is not financially secure and should not have been approved.
Tottenham argue that the Newham loan breaches EC laws banning state aid for private companies; that the council acted beyond its powers by entering into the deal with West Ham; and finally that Newham should have considered offering similar terms to them as they would then potentially have benefited from having two Premier League clubs in the borough.
Newham's defence is technical but crucial. The council argues that in fact it has not agreed to make the loan, but simply agreed that its chief executive could make the loan in future, if a suitable deal can be agreed with West Ham over terms and conditions.
Tottenham argue that this admission proves that the OPLC should not have approved West Ham, as without the Newham money the bid cannot satisfy the key criteria that any tenant has "committed, secure and agreed" funding.
Newham's claim that the loan has not been agreed is understood to have greatly concerned the OPLC, which based its decision to award West Ham the stadium on the fact that the funding was in place.
The council and West Ham are understood to have signed numerous documents to that effect.
The Daily Telegraph understands that the OPLC was so concerned that it has written to Newham demanding clarification of the status of the loan. The council is thought to have responded that the loan will be available to West Ham, but Tottenham and Orient will claim that that admission negates the council's defence on other points.
Describing the OPLC decision as "irrational, discriminatory and unfair", Tottenham accuse them of displaying bias towards West Ham in the bidding process and of secretly changing the rules by which the preferred bidder would be chosen.
Tottenham argue that in key areas they were not given vital information about how the decision-making process would be made, particularly in relation to the five criteria on which the final call was based.
The OPLC set out the criteria at the start of the process, stating that they were listed in order of importance, with the financial certainty of bidders rated the most important.
Spurs say that "without warning" the OPLC changed the rules during the final bidding, judging the criteria with equal weight. This, they say, worked against them as West Ham should have failed the financial test, and the areas they were "perceived as failing" – reopening the stadium rapidly and flexible usage – were third and fifth on the list.
They cite a letter from Johnson as evidence of the confusion, even among OPLC stakeholders. Explaining his decision to back West Ham, Johnson initially said the objectives "were listed in order of importance". In a subsequent letter however he has admitted that this was "a mistake and obviously so".
www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/west-ham/8590551/Tottenham-Hotspur-and-Leyton-Orient-face-crucial-week-in-oppostion-to-West-Hams-Olympic-Stadium-move.html
