Spurs thread 2014-2015

[johnny on the spot]

If this goes through, FFP will probably be history. Imagine some French **** telling billionaire yanks how to spend their money.

 

[stony]

If this goes through, FFP will probably be history. Imagine some French **** telling billionaire yanks how to spend their money.

One of the deluded muppets on that spurs board referred to Spurs as "an old money club" and "the Man United of the south"

They really do have delusions of fucking grandeur.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

If this goes through, FFP will probably be history. Imagine some French **** telling billionaire yanks how to spend their money.

One of the deluded muppets on that spurs board referred to Spurs as "an old money club" and "the Man United of the south"

They really do have delusions of fucking grandeur.

An old moneyed club that can trace their league status back to 1908.

 

[Matty]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29177759


Graph boy will be upset if this happens.

Actually he wouldn't, as with everything that happens to Spurs he'll twist it into a positive. I've no doubt if he was here now he's have found some way to sell Spurs being homeless for an entire season as a huge benefit to the club.

 

[JimB]

Where will they play though, Wemberley?

No decision yet, Wembley, Olympic Stadium and weirdly MK Dons also mentioned.

After WHU move to the Olympic stadium then would not Upton Park do for a year or so? Its a perfect fit for those two wide boys to go and offer renting the ground out to Spurs after the way Levy tried to bully his way onto the Olympic site.

I don't wish to be a bleating Spurs fan on another club's message board but please forgive me if I give you a fresh perspective on that particular saga:

Spurs initially had no interest in the Olympic site. They were working on their own plans to build a new stadium in Tottenham. But when Boris decided at the eleventh hour to shelve the original Olympic stadium plan (which had been to reduce it, post Olympics, to a 25K permanent athletics stadium), he lobbied hard for Spurs to bid in order that West Ham didn't have a free run at it. Still, Spurs were not interested. They had no desire for the team to play in an athletics stadium with the pitch miles from the stand. So Boris and / or the OPLC promised them that dismantling the stadium, removing the track and building a football specific stadium would not be a deal breaker. They claimed that there only had to be an athletics legacy for the bid to be acceptable and that, of the legislated five requirements for any bid, by far the greatest weight would be given to financial viability.

So Spurs were persuaded. They teamed up with AEG and presented a bid which would have cost the taxpayer not a penny more than the always budgeted £35m promised to any successful bid. For athletics legacy, Spurs promised to redevelop Crystal Palace stadium into a 40K venue and to support British Athletics with an annual contribution (as to the amount, I don't know).

Regardless of the merits (or lack thereof) of that bid, what followed was just, well.........wrong. Spurs' bid, naturally, was infinitely superior than West Ham's in terms of financial viability. Spurs required no public funding. West Ham, by contrast, required a £40m loan from Newham council - a loan which was subsequently found by European courts to be illegal. West Ham would subsequently demand that a further £160m of public money be spent on making this now frankenstein of a stadium somewhat passable as a football venue. So much for the greatest weight being given to the financial viability of the bids.

Worse still, when the OPLC announced their decision, they said that they had especially favoured the bid that promised to maintain the athletics track in its current location. That removing the track had never been negotiable. Nothing wrong with that in isolation. Everything wrong, though, with having told Spurs a brazen lie in order to get them to bid. The OPLC also claimed that they had favoured the bid which promised to have the stadium fully functioning at the earliest opportunity. Spurs had promised to deliver their new stadium three years after the Olympics. West Ham had promised to be playing in the new stadium one year after the Olympics. As it happens, West Ham are still not in the Olympic stadium and will not be so until four years after the Olympics. Funny, that.

In the aftermath of the OPLC's decision and their explanation as to why they had chosen West Ham, Levy was understandably furious. He also had good reason to be highly suspicious of the impartiality of various OPLC members and the process as a whole. Quite apart from having been told a huge lie in order to get Spurs to bid, you might remember that there was a senior OPLC employee who was also working part time for West Ham. Perhaps it was just coincidence that Karen Brady revealed details of Spurs' bid in her Sun newspaper column a couple of days before the OPLC announced their decision? The bids were sealed and supposed to be secret. There is no way that she could or should have known those details. Perhaps it was also just coincidence that most media sources were briefed from within the OPLC that West Ham had won the bid..................the night before the vote had even been held?

It was as a consequence of this clear improper behaviour that Daniel Levy employed the services of an accountancy firm to investigate the nature and extent of the wrongdoing. The accountancy firm, in turn, employed detectives to dig up the dirt. Nothing illegal in that. It was the detectives who broke the law by getting hold of Karen Brady's phone records (they didn't tap her phones, as is often misreported).

A succession of legal proceedings ensued. Levy was determined that, henceforward, the athletics track had to remain at the Olympic stadium. That's what the subsequent judicial appeals were really about. Since Spurs had principally lost the bid as a consequence of not promising to keep the athletics track, it seems only fair that West Ham should never be allowed to do away with it either. And there is little doubt that that is what West Ham would eventually have done had they become the stadium's owners. Levy saw to it that that is now no longer possible. The OPLC were forced, without Spurs' involvement this time, to begin the bidding process again (the original bid having been deemed illegal). Under the new terms, West Ham will only ever be tenants. Yes, of course Levy was acting on his own behalf. But I think that fans of pretty much every football club bar West Ham would have been pissed off if West Ham had got their hands on prime London real estate for a song and at the public purse's expense.

Just to finish (and apologies for having been so long winded), I ought to point out that I am delighted that Spurs lost the bid. I was vehemently against the potential move to Stratford. So all of the above is not out of bitterness. I simply wished to put the record straight since it was horribly misreported at the time.

Spurs were not baddies in all of this. Maybe not the goodies either. But definitely a victim of political chicanery.

 

[jimharri]

If this goes through, FFP will probably be history. Imagine some French **** telling billionaire yanks how to spend their money.

One of the deluded muppets on that spurs board referred to Spurs as "an old money club" and "the Man United of the south"

They really do have delusions of fucking grandeur.

It's what they do best. Them and their G&T quaffing neighbours.

 

[JimB]

If this goes through, FFP will probably be history. Imagine some French c**t telling billionaire yanks how to spend their money.

One of the deluded muppets on that spurs board referred to Spurs as "an old money club" and "the Man United of the south"

They really do have delusions of fucking grandeur.

An old moneyed club that can trace their league status back to 1908.

To be fair, the Football League was almost exclusively a northern / midlands league until the early 20th century.

Spurs were previously well established members of the Southern League.

But yes, some Spurs fans do talk utter bollocks about the club. It's embarrassing. But I guess that all clubs have them.

If this goes through, FFP will probably be history. Imagine some French c**t telling billionaire yanks how to spend their money.

If - and it is a big "if" - this private equity firm do bid for Spurs and are successful, I think it highly unlikely that they'd be the type of owner to lavish money on the club, even if FFP didn't exist. Far more likely that they'll be like most other American investors in English football.

The best that we Spurs fans could hope for, I suspect, is that they'd continue to run the club in much the same way that ENIC have and with the same degree of relative "success".

 

[JimB]

£1 Billion for Spurs ? Has Dr Evil kidnapped them or something.

How the fuck have they come up with such an outrageous sum ?

Nigh on certain that that figure was plucked from Darren Lewis' arse.

 

[JimB]

Can someone with spurs forum account/bother to create one ask their fans opinion about ffp that their club helped to set? Even though they always hover near 4th they will still need large investment to break through (even bale's money wasn't enough). And now, even new owner wouldn't change anything.

I can tell you directly that I have always been against FFP.

Of course, I'm not happy with City's (and Chelsea's) spending. But for the generosity of your clubs' respective owners, the chances are that Spurs would be a perennial Champions League team by now. Bah!

But equally, I can't find anything inherently wrong in a company's owner investing in his company. It's what happens the world over. In every business sector.

Is it unfair that City can outspend the likes of Spurs four times over? Possibly......if you're the kind of person who sees the world in terms of fair and unfair. But it's no more unfair than United being able to do likewise (or Spurs being able to do likewise relative to, say, Burnley) - no matter the bullshit argument that they earned their money. That doesn't make it any more of a level playing field.

FFP is only going to make things worse for those clubs, like Spurs, with ambitions to join the elite. They are outside the virtuous circle that is the Champions League. To get there and stay there will be nigh on impossible without outside funding. And it's only going to get more difficult.

My hope is, though, that FFP will be challenged. And if it is, I can't see it surviving the scrutiny of a European court.

 

[jrb]

JimB, my old Cockney Sparrow.

Jim is a ledge on SSC . Knows his stuff. And is very well respected. Got plenty of time for him.

Go easy on him, but he definitely can stand his corner and more. If he hangs around, he'll be an asset to this thread.