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Tottenham Olympic Stadium bid has economic certainty at its core
Despite a vocal campaign against moving to Stratford, Tottenham believe most supporters can see the economic sense.
Despite a vocal campaign against moving to Stratford, Tottenham believe most supporters can see the economic sense.
- Tottenham's bid for the Olympic Stadium was
originally dismissed as a stalking horse for the proposed new stadium by
White Hart Lane (above). Photograph: Tottenham Fc/Press Association
Images
Tottenham Hotspur's late bid to take control of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford was not taken seriously at first by fans, politicians or the Olympic community. It is now.Originally
dismissed as a stalking horse to improve their chances of getting
planning permission for a new stadium at White Hart Lane and put
pressure on those – Transport for London, English Heritage and Haringey
council – making what the club saw as onerous demands, plan B has become
plan A. If Spurs are granted preferred bidder status when the Olympic
Park Legacy Company makes its decision on 28 January, they must hand
over a sizeable bond to underline that fact.The seriousness of
their intent became clear in October when Tim Leiweke, the president of
the US sports and entertainment company AEG, flew to London and tossed a
hand grenade into the debate. Revealing that the plan was to demolish
the existing stadium, remove the track and rebuild the ground as a
purpose-built football stadium lit the touchpaper on a fiery debate that
will not end with the OPLC's decision.This week's salvo from
David Keirle, the head of the firm of architects drawing up Spurs' plans
for a new stadium that they claim will be the best in Europe, raised
the stakes further. It was a high-risk strategy. On the one hand it
risked fixing in the public imagination that their pitch involved
tearing down a stadium built using £496m of taxpayers' money just a few
months after it hosts the Games. On the other it enabled Spurs to make a
pitch directly to their fans and plant doubts in the minds of their
West Ham counterparts. Just as there is unrest among some Spurs fans
about moving east, so there are a growing number of West Ham fans
questioning whether Stratford would really be a better option.Most
of all it was aimed at raising doubts about West Ham's ability to make
the economics work. The argument about knocking down the stadium is more
subtle than it first appears. In many ways the real surprise is that
there was not more outrage in 2005 at the fact that around half a
billion pounds is being spent on building a temporary structure. Then,
the default plan was to reduce it from 80,000 to 25,000 seats after the
Games. Given that it will cost around £1m a year to maintain, Spurs say
it is better to simply knock it down and build a state-of-the-art
football stadium that can support itself for decades.The Spurs
pitch is based on economic certainty. Trust us, it is saying to the
government, the legacy company and the mayor, and we will not come back
with a begging bowl in years to come.They point to a strong
supporter base and a growing global brand as evidence that they can be
relied upon to deliver the return that will be promised to the OPLC
under the terms of the lease agreement. They can point across the Thames
to AEG's success in turning the abject Millennium Dome into the hugely
successful O2 and their ability to programme a calendar of sports and
entertainment events that will keep the site busy for 365 days a year.
In October, AEG Europe president David Campbell pushed those buttons:
"We went into a big white elephant and made it work for the government
and work for us. We hope we can do the same here."More difficult
will be winning over Seb Coe and the athletics lobby. Spurs are adamant
that the two sports cannot coexist and claim their plans offer a better
legacy for athletics in any case. But UK Athletics, and an ever-growing
list of athletes, are convinced the offer to refurbish Crystal Palace
and establish a "legacy fund" for the sport is nothing more than window
dressing.Ed Warner, the UK Athletics chairman, believes the
inspirational effect of giving British athletes the goal of competing on
the same track where the 2012 Games took place cannot be measured in
pounds and pence. The International Olympic Committee said yesterday it
would prefer the track to stay but would not intervene.Coe's
insistence that the athletics legacy must be delivered on the Park is
partly personal – he made the promise in Singapore and deeply believes
it could reinvigorate the sport in the UK – and partly political given
his ambitions in global sports politics beyond the Games. But Coe does
not perhaps have the leverage he once did.For the club there are
200 million other good reasons for the move. It estimates building the
60,000-capacity football stadium and renovating Crystal Palace will cost
£250m, and they could potentially recoup a considerable sum of that by
selling the naming rights for the ground. By contrast, the plan to
rebuild White Hart Lane has been costed at nearer £450m.The club
reason that, with fans travelling an average of 40 miles to White Hart
Lane and a high proportion coming from Hertfordshire and Essex, the
benefits to the club and supporters of the new location will outweigh
their historical attachment to N17. They believe they can argue that the
design of the new stadium, fusing a traditional "English" football
atmosphere with comfort and innovation, shows they put supporters first.Although
there is a vocal campaign against the move, the club believe the
majority of fans would follow them east. With the looming introduction
of Uefa's Financial Fair Play rules that will force clubs to maximise
revenues to compete and the lure of a new stadium, they believe
supporters will ultimately follow their heads rather than their hearts.For
Daniel Levy, the Spurs majority shareholder who has shrewdly plotted
their course to the Champions League despite the limitations of White
Hart Lane, there might be another motivation.Those opposing the
Tottenham plan are convinced there must be more to it than meets the
eye. If Levy has got an eye on a sale - whether to AEG, the Qataris or
some other suitor - then winning the race to occupy a purpose built
stadium in a very well connected part of London that will soon have the
eyes of the world on it will increase the value of his asset
exponentially.
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