WHUFC.com
Germany star Thomas Hitzlsperger is right behind the club's embracing of the
Olympic ideals
21.01.2011
Thomas Hitzlsperger has been working hard at Chadwell Heath to return to
action for the club's Barclays Premier League run-in - but used a break from
his rehab to take part in a Premier League 4 Sport event at the Boleyn
Ground. The Germany midfielder has made excellent progress in his recovery
from a thigh operation and has begun to do outside work on the training
pitches. After one such gruelling session with the fitness coaches, he
headed straight to the stadium to join in on a table tennis tournament
featuring youngsters involved with the club's Community Sports Trust. The
youngsters participating in the Olympic sport were from All Saints School
and Sydney Russell School in Barking and Dagenham. They were taking on
children from Saint Aloysius School in Islington, with their north London
'visitors' for the matches in the Boleyn Ground dressing rooms naturally
sporting the red of Arsenal. The kids all showed off their skills taught to
them through the programmes overseen by the club's community department -
while also getting the chance to see Hitzlsperger show off his own ping-pong
prowess. "It was fun playing with the kids, they all seemed to be enjoying
it and so did I," said Hitzlsperger. "They were good, you could see that
they have been training and playing quite a bit, they were of a very good
standard. "It was West Ham against Arsenal, so I was determined to try and
make sure it was us on the winning side! It was a really good event."
While the 28-year-old is targeting a playing return sooner rather than
later, he is also looking forward to next year's Olympic Games coming to
this part of the capital. "Of course I would like to go there and watch some
of the sports that will be going on. This is biggest sporting event in the
world. "I would like to say as a footballer that is the World Cup, but it
isn't, it is the Olympics and especially because it's here in London. "There
are so many people looking forward to it and if I get the opportunity, I
will definitely go and watch as much as I can, particularly the athletics."
Premier League 4 Sport uses the prominence of football to help drive
interest in a wide range of sporting activities. As part of the Hammers
commitment to Olympic legacy, the club is regularly involved in such
projects - helping local children to get active and have the opportunity to
try new things. Annabelle Bailey, West Ham's Premier League 4 Sport
co-ordinator, oversaw the tournament. She said: "This event demonstrates the
contribution West Ham is making to delivering Olympic legacy. "We look
forward to continuing our partnership with Arsenal through the Premier
League 4 Sports programme and through football, encouraging more and more
young people to get into sport."
Richard Scudamore, Premier League Chief Executive, said: "In the run up to
2012, we want to see more young people from all walks of life getting
involved in sport. "These new clubs are an excellent example of the how the
Olympic legacy will benefit people right across the country for years to
come and how the Games can be used to inspire more people to get active."
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£40m Olympic Stadium loan to West Ham approved
BBC.co.uk
A local council has arranged a £40m loan to finance West Ham's potential
move into the Olympic Stadium. The club is going head-to-head with Tottenham
Hotspur to take over the site after the 2012 Games. Councillors at the
Labour-run Newham Council voted in favour of the loan, calling it a "strong
package".
A BBC London investigation had raised a series of concerns about how the
decision to loan the money was reached. West Ham will have access to the
loan, secured by the council from the Treasury, if they are named preferred
bidder by the Olympic Park Legacy Company at the end of January. Council
chief executive Kim Bromley-Derry said: "We are unable to comment on
financial aspects of the Newham Council and West Ham United bid for the
Olympic Stadium because of a confidentiality agreement with the Olympic Park
Legacy Company. "However our proposal offers a strong financial package with
no further call on the public purse."
It emerged before the vote that councillors had been unable to examine all
the financial details until the last minute. A "significant number" of
backbench councillors were known to have reservations but were said to be
"afraid" to speak out over fear of losing out on highly-paid advisory roles.
There were also impartiality questions over dozens of gifts from the club to
Mayor of Newham Sir Robin Wales. The council has insisted the mayor had
"nothing to hide" over hospitality he received from the club, although it
meant Sir Robin was unable to take part in the vote. It did not comment on
the advisory roles.
Speaking after the vote, Mike Law, a former Labour councillor who defected
to the Conservatives, said: "I am not surprised it went through - the whole
vote was just window dressing. "If you look at the constitution the mayor is
the sole decision maker - so it makes a mockery to say he's not involved
because he didn't vote. "Elected members in Newham had not been briefed
properly, and they have been hoodwinked into ratifying a decision that had
already been made." After the vote a council spokesman refused to say
whether it would be liable for the debt if West Ham defaulted, citing
commercial confidentiality.
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Hammers secure £40m loan
KUMB.com
Filed: Thursday, 20th January 2011
By: Staff Writer
Newham Council have given their approval to a £40million loan to assist West
Ham United's proposed move to the Olympic Stadium. The arrangement was
rubber-stamped at a council meeting tonight, meaning the Hammers will have
access to the funds should they be given the nod to move to Stratford. "Our
proposal offers a strong financial package with no further call on the
public purse," Council chief executive Kim Bromley-Derry said after the
meeting, before declining to comment on the finer details of the
arrangement. However the decision process was criticised by Conservative
concillor Mike Law, who told the BBC: "I'm not surprised it went through -
the whole vote was just window dressing. "If you look at the constitution
the mayor is the sole decision maker - so it makes a mockery to say he's not
involved because he didn't vote. Elected members in Newham had not been
briefed properly, and they have been hoodwinked into ratifying a decision
that had already been made."
West Ham find out next week whether their bid to move to the Olympic Stadium
has been successful. Meanwhile United's only opponents - Tottenham - saw
their bid suffer a major blow today with the news that Crystal Palace intend
to redevelop the National Sports Centre for their own purposes. Spurs' bid
for the Stratford tenancy included plans to redevelop the NSC for athletics
purposes - whilst they bulldoze the £550million Olympic Stadium and replace
it with a purpose-built arena.
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Obinna set for Hammers stay
Birmingham link with on-loan forward is shrugged off
By Simone Bargellini Last updated: 20th January 2011
SSN
Victor Obinna's agent insists the Nigerian forward is set to remain at West
Ham for the rest of the season. The 23-year-old joined the Hammers on a
season-long loan deal from Inter Milan last summer and has scored three
goals in 21 matches in all competitions this season. With Avram Grant's side
struggling in the Premier League, Obinna has been mentioned as a target of
several clubs this month, including Birmingham. But although Obinna's agent
has confirmed interest from three Serie A clubs, he expects him to see out
the initial agreement with West Ham.
Daily contact
"I'm in daily contact with Inter Milan with regards to Obinna," Valentino
Nerbini told Tuttomercatoweb.com. "So far in this transfer window, three
clubs have come forward for him - Fiorentina, Bolognaand Udinese. There has
been some activity about the player but as it stands, he wants to remain
there unless he receives a tempting offer from Italy. "He is happy at West
Ham so intends to stay there, as agreed, until June 2011. I can rule out
Birmingham."
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Desperate Avram hits the Ba
The Sun
Published: Today
DEMBA BA will become Avram Grant's latest winter signing. The Senegal hitman
will sign on loan from Hoffenheim until the end of the season, as Grant
looks for fresh troops to help save his job and keep the Hammers up. West
Ham will have the option to buy in the summer for around £6million. Ba, 25,
has also attracted interest from Blackburn and Stoke. But an expected move
to the Potteries fell through when he failed a medical due to a knee
problem. Grant, though, is desperate to add much-needed firepower.
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If West Ham get Olympic Stadium we will all need binoculars
The Sun
HARRY REDKNAPP - Columnist
Email the author
Published: Today
WE keep hearing about the Olympic legacy and the need to have a world-class
athletics stadium after the 2012 Games in London. But my big fear is that if
West Ham move into the stadium in Stratford with a whacking great running
track around the pitch, the only legacy for them will be a nightmare. It's
incredible that the club is even considering taking over the Olympic Stadium
and keeping the 400m track intact, putting up an invisible yet
insurmountable barrier between the fans and the football. Tottenham, my
club, also have ambitions to move there because if Spurs want to progress
they need a bigger ground - but they have a vastly different outlook on the
project. I grew up as a player with West Ham United. I played for them and I
managed them. I'm not that popular with their supporters these days because
I manage Tottenham but I really have a genuine feel for them over this. Try
to mix football and athletics and you end up with a great big bowl of
nothing. Look around the world - most foreign clubs with any sense are
abandoning the combination stadium idea. Lots of German clubs experimented
with it in the past and now they are being dug up and relaid with turf.
Stuttgart is one example where the club is moving to a whole new stadium to
get back to the traditional layout of a football ground. The wind-blown
no-man's land between a pitch and the stands can kill football.
And that's exactly what will happen if West Ham - or indeed whoever - get
the keys to the Olympic Stadium in its present state and maintain a red
tarmac road right in front of the stands. Upton Park was and still is one of
the great grounds for atmosphere. These days it doesn't happen so often but
on the big nights, especially for cup games, the place can rock. In the old
days, you would actually see the fans swaying as they sang 'Bubbles' in the
old Chicken Run.
The only other place in football that could compare to it was Liverpool,
when the fans sang 'You'll Never Walk Alone' on the Kop. It made an occasion
out of a match and was also a formidable weapon against the opposition. Some
players used to claim they could feel the fans' breath on their necks as
they ran down the wing and it can be very off-putting. In contrast, Chelsea
used to have a dog track around their pitch at Stamford Bridge and the place
really struggled for atmosphere. It was so wide open and any atmosphere
evaporated quickly.
Chelsea now have a tight, compact, steep-sided ground and the atmosphere is
much better. White Hart Lane too is now totally closed in and the noise is
terrific - among the best in the country. West Ham are in danger of throwing
away one of their most potent weapons - and it would have to be a long throw
to reach the fans from the pitch. I'm speaking merely as a passionate
football person. The decision over who goes to the Olympic Stadium - indeed,
if anyone does - is not mine. I'm not just banging the company drum for
Tottenham here.
Even if Spurs do win the race against West Ham to make it their new home, by
the time all the development is finished I might not be at the club anyway.
It's just that in my heart I dread to think what could eventually happen to
West Ham if they moved to the main Olympic Stadium and do not heed the
warnings. I hate going to grounds where there is a running track to get past
before you see Subbuteo-sized footballers through your opera-style
binoculars.
And what if West Ham are relegated this season and then find themselves in a
60,000-capacity stadium in a Championship match. Can you imagine? Half the
seats would be empty and it would become a desolate graveyard for a
once-great club. I know a number of Tottenham fans are opposed to a move to
Stratford. I can understand that and it's not for me to tell them what's
best. It's been their club for years, I've been there for five minutes.
There aren't too many Tottenham fans in Tottenham, let alone Stratford. But
one thing's for certain, the club needs a bigger ground.
We have 35,000 people on the WAITING LIST for season tickets and a stadium
capacity of around 36,000, so we could fill the place twice. To compete with
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and so on, we need a bigger ground. That's
undeniable. The people working on behalf of Tottenham are doing an honest
job trying to grow the club back to where it once was - and where it belongs
- among the elite of English football. Mine is a simple belief that running
tracks and football grounds sit together about as well as putting a swimming
pool on Centre Court. Fans from Tottenham should have their voices heard and
will do so.
I hope the same goes for West Ham supporters too. I just worry that if no
one sees sense, we'll be too far away from Hammers supporters to hear them
ever again.
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Olympic Stadium will kill West Ham warns Harry
The Sun
By ANDREW DILLON
Published: Today
SPURS boss Harry Redknapp last night begged his old club West Ham not to
move into the Olympic Stadium, warning: "You'll turn it into a desolate
graveyard." The Hammers are locked in a bitter tug-of-war with Tottenham for
the right to take over after the 2012 Games in London. Spurs plan to
demolish the main arena and replace it with a purpose-built football
stadium, whereas West Ham would leave a running track around the pitch.
Redknapp insists that would be a 'nightmare', saying: "Try to mix football
and athletics and you end up with a great big bowl of nothing. "The
windblown no-man's land between a pitch and the stands can kill football."
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Spurs rule out loaning Keane to West Ham
Published 23:00 20/01/11 By John Cross
The Mirror
West Ham have been thwarted in a cheeky bid to borrow Spurs striker Robbie
Keane. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy says he only wants a permanent deal
for the £6m-rated striker and will not subsidise his £65,000-a-week wage
packet while he goes on loan. The clubs have a long-running feud, which was
sparked by a 2009 transfer saga involving then-Hammers striker Craig
Bellamy.
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London 2012 Olympics: Broken promises or an uncertain future, neither was in
the bid book
Telegraph.co.uk
By Paul Kelso 10:02PM GMT 20 Jan 2011
When Baroness Ford sits down to view West Ham and Tottenham's final bids for
the Olympic Stadium, she and her chief executive, Andy Altman, will be in
the position of the apocryphal tourists lost in rural Ireland. Stopping to
ask directions to Dublin they are told: "Well now, I wouldn't start from
here." The mess the Olympic Park Legacy Company has been asked to unravel is
a shambles, and it has been inevitable from the moment that London mounted
its bid for 2012. Bluntly, London made a promise it could not keep, and the
result is the impossible decision Ford and Altman find themselves pondering.
The Olympic Stadium was built on the myth that a facility with a fixed
athletics track was viable without football, or significant public subsidy.
From the outset, the transformation of the main stadium from an 80,000-seat
arena to a 25,000-capacity permanent athletics facility was an article of
faith for key members of the bid. The aim was to avoid leaving a white
elephant, but it almost ensured the opposite. Tessa Jowell, then culture
secretary, former Mayor Ken Livingstone and bid chairman Lord Coe were among
the most devout believers, and would brook no argument that the Games'
athletics legacy would be delivered in this format. The opinion of London
2012 deputy chairman Sir Keith Mills we can deduce from the fact he is a key
player in Tottenham's bid to knock down an arena whose legacy potential he
spent two years promoting.
The problem was that no one ever established how it would be paid for. For
six long years, from the moment London's bid was conceived, those of us
covering its progress have repeatedly asked that question and failed to
receive a credible answer. When the Games were won in 2005 we were assured
that there was time to find an answer. No organising committee had ever
started considering the legacy earlier, we were told. It turns out that none
has ever had more reason. The issue was debated repeatedly in 2006 and 2007
around the Olympic board table and in tentative discussions with West Ham
and Tottenham. Football was always rejected, either because of its own
failings - avoiding a deal with West Ham under Icelandic ownership may have
been a lucky escape - or a failure to accept the limitations of the
25,000-seat model. With no viable business plan and the politicians
unwilling to back their rhetoric about legacy with public funds, the OPLC
has had no choice but to turn to football, and a decision that, whatever
happens, will be unsatisfactory. Choose Tottenham and more than £500 million
of public funds will be torched after just 17 days of Olympic competition
when the Spurs bulldozers move in to raze London's field of dreams to the
ground.
Buried in the rubble would be the promises made, in public and private, to
the International Olympic Committee and more importantly the British
taxpayer, that the stadium would leave an athletics legacy capable of
hosting the world's biggest events. As International Association of
Athletics Federations president Lamine Diack and Britain's IOC member, Sir
Craig Reedie, have made clear this week, British sport's reputation for
honesty would be back in the gutter from which it was lifted by the 2012
bid.
Choose West Ham on the other hand and the same £500 million public
investment would be handed to a club flirting with relegation whose
willingness to compromise and accommodate athletics is as laudable as its
future is uncertain. With the bid reliant on a £40 million loan from Newham,
Britain's most impoverished borough, and the club's ownership shared between
a consortium of Icelandic banks and the Davids Sullivan and Gold, whose day
jobs in adult entertainment make politicians queasy, and confidence in the
stadium's long-term future will be in short supply. What a choice. Broken
promises or an uncertain future. Neither was in the bid book.
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West Ham consider a free transfer for El-Hadji Diouf as well as moves for
Robbie Keane and Demba Ba
By SPORTSMAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 12:39 AM on 21st January 2011
Daily Mail
West Ham are considering a free transfer move for Blackburn striker El-Hadji
Diouf and are pressing ahead with bids for Hoffenheim's Demba Ba and
Tottenham's Robbie Keane. West Brom and Stoke remain interested in Ba, 25,
but his failure to pass a medical at Stoke has opened the possibility of a
loan deal. That would free up funds for a bid for Keane while Diouf, 30,
would be brought in for nothing with Blackburn having agreed to let him go.
Tottenham have rebuffed loan bids for Keane and want £6m. Newcastle maintain
an interest but West Ham are hopeful they can sign the 30-year-old.
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As If Things Couldn't Get Worse
West Ham Till I Die
Just when you thought things at West Ham couldn't get any worse, it is
rumoured that we are about to sign El-Hadji Diouf on a free transfer from
Blackburn. He is a thug. We don't want him here and anyone with West Ham's
true interests at heart would know that he is not a player West Ham fans
could ever stomach, let along pay £50 to watch. Even if we ignore his
thuggish tendencies, he's even less prolific than Iain Dowie. Four goals in
60 appearances at Ewood Park. Doesn't that tell you all you need to know?
Next.
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