Jealousy and inaccuracy seem to be behind the City AM article that has been published referring to possible sell on revenues of the Olympic stadium. Someone spent a lot of time adding 2+2 and getting 5! The poorly researched misinformation spouted by Frank Dalleres and Oliver Gill bears all the hallmarks of 'space filling', probably to offset the lack of a 'proper' lead story. The Olympic stadium anchor tenant deal struck by West Ham will always be subject to scrutiny because there are those who are basically jealous, they should remember that West Ham did not ask for the Stadium to be built on there door step, the Olympic site was chosen for a whole host of reasons, but providing a new venue for West Ham United was not in the remit. More is the pity, because IF the Stadium had been constructed with West Ham in mind to take over once the Olympic games had finished, the entire construction process of converting the Stadium would have been different and incredibly less expensive! The fact is that virtually all other main stadium constructed for the Olympic games elsewhere in the World have become costly white elephants, at least the Queen Elizabeth Stadium will start to return money to the tax payer, and that is how it should be.
The misjudged article in City AM assumes that co-owners of West Ham United, David Sullivan and David Gold, are in the market to sell the club. The premise for the writing is based on an old throw away comment made by both David's at different times similar to "if a super rich person were willing to invest in the club then we would have to look at the proposal" David Gold has often said that he owns 500 Ann Summers shops not 500 oil wells, but at no time has there ever been an outline or time frame. The article further infers that David Sullivan made his fortune by selling pornography, his men's magazines were indeed 'near the mark' however at no time were they legally deemed as Porn! We at the Org know this because one of our team actually worked in the same business environment at the time Mr Sullivan started out, the legal frame work at the time meant that printers and distributors would not sanction the production of a magazine or any other item that had not first been given legal clearance. Although we are not sure if he worked for David Sullivan or David Gold at the time, the late John Mortimer based at Lincoln's Inn definitely used to do the legal clearance for Knave and Fiesta which were two prominent men's magazines at the time.
So apart form trying to besmirch David Sullivan's character (many have done so in the past) the City AM article goes on to quote 'figures' plucked from the air and closes with one final piece of inaccuracy..........
{Manchester City, Crystal Palace, Swansea and Everton have all seen full or partial buyouts in the last year alone, and analysts predict demand for English clubs will continue to grow.}
Who ever took over Manchester City this year must really have done so on the quiet! - Ed
