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WmCovell
10:25 Mon Feb 6
Re: West Ham to stay at Upton Park
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Karren Brady: Grounds for optimism
West Ham United remain committed to the idea of moving to the Olympic Stadium, contrary to reports last week that the club's executives are "going cool" on the prospect. "I wouldn't be dragging my body to all the meetings, or reading through a 900-page document every night, if we weren't still committed," says Karren Brady, sitting behind her desk at Upton Park, in front of an evocative portrait of the late Bobby Moore.
Nonetheless, West Ham's vice-chairman considers "the biggest disappointment" of her life to be the way the bid process has unfolded. When pressed on the greatest regrets of her 42 years, she denies that she has any. "But my biggest disappointment is that I spent two years of my life getting to be preferred bidder for the Olympic Stadium. It was their competition, their rules, and we abided by that, and then not being the preferred bidder, and having to go through another process, is like someone giving you the keys and then changing the locks. We should now be planning a future there, as opposed to having to go back and review everything."
The Olympic Park Legacy Committee abandoned the deal to sell the £486m arena to West Ham last October, after legal challenges by Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient were compounded by an anonymous phone call to the European Commission, complaining that Newham Council's partial funding of the West Ham bid amounted to improper state aid. I ask Brady if she knows who made that phone call? "I can narrow it down to one or two," she says, sweetly.
Whatever, the stadium will now remain in public ownership after the Olympics, to be rented out from 2014 to the successful bidder. And, despite her acute sense of disappointment, Brady insists that the claret-and-blue hat is still very much in the ring.
"We do genuinely believe that we could make the stadium a success, both in terms of our physical presence, and encouraging football supporters to become involved in other sports," she says. "We passionately believe that it was built for athletics, and should have an athletics legacy. But obviously, the deal has to be right for us in terms of giving up here. We already have a stadium, we could have 48,000 seats if we redevelop parts of it, there's a hotel, a football atmosphere...". Still singing the same song about moving i see but that figure of 48,000 seats looks rather interesting i wonder where that has just come from ? I hope its a consultant figure and not just an off the cuff number made up for the journo writting the interview ,
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ATBOG
9:23 Mon Jan 30
Re: West Ham to stay at Upton Park
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sbbb,
Too much circumstancial evidence to believe that the yids sole reason for bidding for the OS was to save money. keith mills (yids director) on the board of LOCOG. keith edelman (ex arsenal MD) on the board of OPLC. Both were aware of our potential should we move into the OS after the games.
And kebabish original is by far the best eatery around upton park. But, horses for courses.
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:^)
7:17 Mon Jan 30
Re: West Ham to stay at Upton Park
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I wish people would give up the idea of expanding the Boleyn ground. If we can't afford £50m to add to the renovation of the OS, which would be largely covered by the eventual sale of our current ground, then where do people think the club will magic up the cash to add 5 thousand seats and rebuild UP station?
Especially as we will also lose ticket revenue due to having to close the whole stand down for the time of the build.
I can't see how rebuilding Upton Park would be anything other than the most pointless and least profitable option G&S have.
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southbankbornnbred
6:52 Mon Jan 30
Re: West Ham to stay at Upton Park
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Mentor - you can believe what you like, mate. That's your prerogative, naturally.
But there are far too many conspiracy theorists on the whole OS issue. And, believe me, the info I get on this is very close to where the action is at.
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