30 May 2018 08:03:33
Now that we only have the silly season to entertain us until the a World Cup (woops nearly abbreviated that) what do the punters think of the proposal to flog Wembley to pump money into the grass roots.
To bring it closer to home, should we (heresy! ) consider the same for OT to give us a bit more clout in the transfer market?
30 May 2018 09:05:45
Telling people it's to limb money into grass roots is just a way of dressing up an ugly truth by blatantly lying.
The English FA is the richest FA in the world, every other country invests in grass roots football without having to sell the family jewels. So I'm fairly confident that if our FA really wanted to invest in grass roots they could easily find the money. Fact is they don't because they are too shortsighted to see the long term benefits for themselves. Their thinking goes a little like this "what's in it for us? " They see it as they spend the money on developing youngsters for them to sign up to an academy and for that club to benefit from the investment and then sell the players on and receive a large fee, while the FA get nothing.
They looked into whether they could receive a sell on fee for any youngster who had benefitted from their investment a few years back. When they found out it would be almost impossible they pretty much shelved any plans to invest significantly into grass roots football.
So when they say they will use the money from the sale of the stadium to invest we can be sure it's a load of rubbish.
The fact that they received special grants and dispensations to reduce the cost to them to build the stadium in the first place should bar them from being able to sell the stadium unless they reimburse those savings in full.
30 May 2018 09:22:10
I have no problem with the principal of selling Wembley. I don't think English Football needs a national stadium anymore, especially one which is so difficult to get to for most of the country. We have plenty of stadia around the country which can host cup finals and the England team.
However, when you look at the economics of the sell off, it does't equate to much of an impact in the grass roots of the game. I can't remember the exact figures but I think it goes a little something like this. FA sell Wembley for £500 mill and after paying off debts are left with £250 mill. The FA want to use the money to create 3G pitches which cost £500k a pop so that's 500 new pitches. I think curremtly Germany has about 4,000 3G pitches and England has 700.
So, it's great that the FA want to do something but it's not quite the magic bullet for the game that it might seem at first glance. Also, bear in mind that Wembely cost over a billion £ so selling it off for £500 million after paying a load of interest on the loans to build it doesn' seem so clever either.
The problem in the FA who decided to spend a billion on a stadium they could have built for £100 million. They could have pumped the rest of their money into the grass roots in the first place. Also, the insistance on building 3G pitches doesn't make sense when decent, maintained grass pitches with good changing facilites would suffice. Also, the Government's policy of austerity and the mass sell off of public land including sports pitches have hugely contributed to the mess we are in with grass roots sports facilities.
30 May 2018 09:24:59
So, sell of Wembley? Sure, why not; it makes no difference to me and another piece of our national infrastructure under foreign ownership won't matter.
Sell off OT or naming rights; absolutely not. Utd has no need to do so and if we lose the name we lose another piece of our history.
30 May 2018 10:58:21
It seems that so far most people see things pretty much the same as me.
Don't quite understand the thumbs down voters. I didn't think up the crazy idea of selling Wembley - just put it out there as change from rather repetitive fare on here at the moment. Shappy, I agree, it's covering up ugly truth with a lie. Never works
As to OT, I did say it was heresy.
30 May 2018 15:54:25
Have you played on those 3G pitches? Absolute nightmare for anyone with a previous knee or achilles injury. There is no give when you turn and half my team are cripples on Monday after playing on them. Bring back Lutons plastic pitch! Made a man of you!
30 May 2018 16:47:56
As a kid I went to many birthday parties playing on Boundary Park. Now that did sting.