We all know that the smc accounts as they stand are meaningless. It's just a way of allam apportioning whatever costs and income he feels like. My gut feeling is that the cost of upgrades for city's benefit have been borne by the smc, apportioned between city and ourselves, thus resulting in the seemingly problematical issues already highlighted. Were the smc run by an independent body then they'd rightly tell city to dip into their £100m a year sky handout to fund any required upgrades themselves. The stadium would also be marketed and operated properly and external income would increase accordingly. I've no idea how successfully hudds stadium runs but I believe they pay significantly less to play there than we do and have never heard of any financial problems with the stadium itself so see no reason why the same couldn't happen in Hull.

I'd bet my bottom dollar that pearson would bite the council's hand off if he were offered the opportunity to take over the running of it and he wouldn't do that if he believed it were likely to be a financial millstone around his neck.

I don't take offence at much and not at all from what you've written.

Assem Allam is, last time I heard, making a number of staff redundant at the Arena thereby reducing the costs. Hull City Tigers Limited should pay a commercial rent for its use thereby making the arena profitable. Whether that happens will depend on the Council and the Premier League.

I may be over playing the costs of maintenance but I'm thinking 5 or 10 years down the line not how much is paid now. The costs will rise and from what I've seen the potential profit margins are too small for when the roof starts leaking.

If the SMC retains the lease and Assem Allam is cooperative (big if) then I want to see the whole area developed. Its the perfect site for the ice arena and Olympic size swimming pool. Such a development could attract cafes, hotels and some high class shops. Some of the land could be used for housing all of which could be re-invested in the KC. Yes very similar to Assem Allam's original idea of a sports village. Just because of who said it doesn't make it a bad idea.

If the SMC loses the lease the Council could develop the area on its own. Tenancy agreements with Hull FC and Hull City would provide the protection both teams need and the Council could utilise the stadium during the City of Culture year and beyond. All it takes is a little imagination and the money.

A sports village and stadium run by the Council makes it easier for FC and City to pay a fair rent that is affordable to both. It may be simplistic but its only a smaller version of the proposed Etihad development in Manchester.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32399291Interesting[/url

10 years ago maybe but the landscape has changed fundamentally.

There is excess retail and leisure capacity already in the city centre, and out of centre developments will therefore not be part of planning policy, quite rightly. You're just shifting retail space from one area to another, investing millions for little incremental sales in an era of migration online and leaving issues in the city centre.

Building (another) ice arena in the city and an Olympic size pool just won't stack financially. Again, millions and millions to build and will run at a loss so a double cash disaster for a council already at breaking point financially.

Allam said originally the village was not for financial gain, but later admitted he wanted the freehold of a public asset to borrow against for the commercial benefit of Hull Tigers. The fact he couldn't access this cash was the reason for changing the name. The reality is that physical retail space is being diluted in value and it would have been catastrophic for the stadium to be in private hands. Stadium mortgaged, retail declines and development fails, stadium ends up in hands of receivers.

IMO the stadium accounts need a forensic review to validate the stadium economics outside control of an interested party. A third party needs to isolate each area of cost and propose an impartial allocation mechanic. City want a new pitch every year that's not necessary? Fine City pays for it. And vice versa. Get some tenants back in the arena, there's £250k. Market the stadium properly. 2014 shows breakeven is achievable. A much better ROI to be had by focussing on the core asset, managing it's condition carefully and optimising its utilisation than spending tens of millions on a high risk-low reward "development" IMO. I know what I'd be doing if it were my money.

Just as an aside, how long does the KC stadium have to carry the KC name? What do KC pay for this naming privilege? Renaming would / could generate a fair bit of income.

The original deal was for 10 years so was only fairly recently renewed. Not sure how long for but it was probably when city were in the championship so will have been much less than could have been achieved if they'd been in the premiership. Lack of sponsorship income also needs to be factored into what we "pay" for teh use if teh stadium

It is. If the SMC was run by an independent company with the same user agreement, Hull City could cut the rent it pays by a significant amount and still be quids in if we stay in the Premier League. Food for thought for anyone wanting to take over the KC.

KSDL (last years turnover was £2.7m) run the John Smith's Stadium in Huddersfield. The best I've found on rentals is old ...... Quote The rent payments due for 2009/10 were HTAFC £ 703,505.25 = 74.45% Giants £ 241,494.75 = 25.55%'" More details ..... www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yor ... hn-8049524 =#FF0000edit: Giants rental to end of July 2014 was £211K.

KSDL (last years turnover was £2.7m) run the John Smith's Stadium in Huddersfield. The best I've found on rentals is old ...... Quote The rent payments due for 2009/10 were HTAFC £ 703,505.25 = 74.45% Giants £ 241,494.75 = 25.55%'" More details ..... www.examiner.co.uk/news/west-yor ... hn-8049524 =#FF0000edit: Giants rental to end of July 2014 was £211K.

I was present at the very first meeting between Assam Allam and the council, It was an informal meeting in the chairman's lounge at HKR, it was the same meeting where AA offered the £1m loan to Rovers, Myself and Steve Brady sat down with him to discuss "his vision" the meeting was quite bizarre, after about 30 mins he kept saying "I keep offering you a gift why do you keep saying no" we tried to explain that 1, the district auditors would not allow the site to be gifted and also there were problems with state aid issues, 2, A sports village would have had an impact on the viabillity of the councils facilities, the meeting broke up we thought that the possition had been made clear until the stories of the coucil refusing his gift to the city emerged, we then though we had better have further discussions with him, so arranged a meeting with Terry Geraghty (sport and leisure) and Steve Bayes (regeneration) Steve works as a qualified nurse at HRI and had just completed his night shift and rushed from HRI to the KC, the Allams took exception to Steve not having a suit on, that set the tone for the meeting, and because of Terry's insistance on not selling the stadium HCC became enemy NO1, that in a nutshell is the turn of events.

Since Hull City got promoted, they now get an absolute shed load of cash from the TV companies to fund this investment. If the SMC losses are due to this upgrade for the TV firms, then would this not be an allocated cost of Hull City's??

Why would Hull City pay rent of £4m when Man City pay a quarter of that sum for a stadium twice as big?

There is no justification for the 6 fold increase in direct costs for hosting RL games.

Bizarre does not even begin to describe our local "philanthropist". Thanks Phil Webbo for enlightening us all on the behaviour you've had to contend with.

Accounts innit - the arithmetic will be correct, somewhere deep under the allocations and interpretations. One person's sustainable model is another's under investment, for example.



Whatever the real situation is, it is just a case of allocating costs and risk. I don't think there's an untapped pot of gold, but I'd guess the situation would be manageable with good will all round (hmmm). If there is a shake up, it might be a good thing - a simpler deal with better aligned incentives would suit all parties, IMO.

Does anyone know if there have been any action taken by the SMC to remove the artificial pitch at the arena. Time is of the essence Dr.

Number one objective should be getting as many folk through the doors for City and FC games, Arena clubs and one-off events as possible whilst ensuring absolute best value on maintenance and operating costs. Drive the top line, sweat the asset.

Indeed, an independent company tasked with maximising other income could quite easily generate enough income to reduce both clubs' rental commitments

I understand the current users agreements are based on attendance and ticket prices. If Hull City used some of the Premier League riches it gets from Sky and BT to half ticket prices it would mean the SMC would face an overnight cut of £2 million, maybe more. Any company taking on the SMC would have no control over that and would be expected by the Council to maintain the KC and Arena to its current standard. If Assem Allam isn't cooking the books the SMC would also lose the loans from Hull City Tigers Limited. The shortfall could be up to £3 or £4 million a year. That's a lot of money to make up.

If City save £3 or £4 million a year they may well be able to afford to pay for floodlights, replacing the pitch and other things demanded by the Premier League and still have change for a player's wages.

If the Council is seriously thinking of terminating the lease then these are some of the problems it may face. It is going to be difficult to sell the same concept when the company providing the biggest source of income could determine its own rent and is not financially dependent upon season ticket sales. This wasn't a problem when the owner of the SMC was also the owner of the biggest source of income.

According to the council the swimming pool and ice arena will built in round two of the new leisure company's development plans. The obvious place is West Park but they don't have control of the land. If they are built together the heat generated from one (not sure which) will provide heating for the other. It was discussed at the last Council meeting. This is the reason I suggested it. The land would also be suitable for an expansion of the college to provide a skilled workforce for the Siemens development. There are many uses for the land if the imagination is there.

Think this is what most people think is going on NOW.
Also said before Hull had to sell the Boulevard as part of the deal we move in surely was some other commitment made at the time by the Council to Hull FC as Hull City and already sold there ground

Do you have any idea what the stadium running costs are per annum? At this stage it's difficult to understand what the true costs are as only abbreviated accounts are available but I fail to see how this could be massively different to huddersfield which seems to operate without any financial problems. Additional costs to meet PL standards shouldn't be borne by the SMC

I agree that retail is a complete non starter for the site, as you say there is excess capacity already in the city centre (just look at the Princes Quay ghost town!) and over the last few years the retail park at Anlaby has spring up, plans are in place for shops on the old Tradex site on Boothferry Road, and further afield Beverley has a large retail development opening soon and the 'big 4' supermarkets and large DIY chains are desperate to get rid of their large shops not build more. Even with hotels several new ones have opened in the city centre, with plans for many more and given the choice you'd stay in the centre not West Park. The time to build all of that was 10 years ago, which I believe Adam Pearson once said was one of his biggest regrets during his SMC ownership.

I would however be in favour of a pool to be built providing it is of Olympic size and standard, which would bring both competitors and visitors to the city, but of course that would require a lot of council funding.

knockersbumpMKII wrote:
This is a classic situation where the council's hand has been forced to act, if it could have being allowed to just ignore the situation it would have done, otherwise why wait so late in the day to act?



hahaha, nice try..

It wasn't a "Rant" (sic) it WAS a rant, an impassioned speech.
I'm not 'anti council', I'm anti laziness, stupidity, head in sand, indecisive, do what we want not what our citizens want 'establishment' the type that you represent that are supposed to best serve the people that vote them in whether that be Locally or nationally.

Time and again it is clear that councillors fail to act, I'm sure you're a model citizen yourself but despite the red tape, old boy network, laizez faire attitudes inefficiency and general nonsense that goes on in LA there is no excuse for the micturate poor decisions made by local councillors & MPs across the country that are illogical, disenfranchise townsfolk as well as having long & far reaching detrimental effects, Hull City council is no different...in this case doing the bare minimum expected then waving some bunting to say what a good job we're doing



If you are unable to accept that then that's your perogative but I'm sure you're intelligent enough to conjure up just a few examples of your own LA making horrendous decisions and not acting faster/effectively over the years.. I can think of a couple just relating to this subject matter...

Similarly asking me to give you examples of the way the Allam's/SMC have run roughshod when they are there for all to see, you should be focusing your efforts on ensuring that the right thing is done this time around for the citizens of Hull or are you just after some more backslapping at a job well done by allowing the status quo to continue coated in some sugar strands?

That I have an opinion that I've voiced that you don't agree with or that you want to stick your head in the sand and ignore the obvious is again your choice if not sad given the actuality of things.
Libelous...



not even close fellah and where I live is completely and utterly irrelevant, thanks for asking though.

Quote ="Obadiah"According to the council the swimming pool and ice arena will built in round two of the new leisure company's development plans. The obvious place is West Park but they don't have control of the land. If they are built together the heat generated from one (not sure which) will provide heating for the other. It was discussed at the last Council meeting. This is the reason I suggested it. The land would also be suitable for an expansion of the college to provide a skilled workforce for the Siemens development. There are many uses for the land if the imagination is there.'" www.hulldailymail.co.uk/20m-Olym ... story.html There are already plans for the Olympic-sized pool and accompanying ice rink - in Bond street on the old Edwin Davis site behind BHS. A far more sensible location aimed to attract international events and people back to the waning shopping hub that is Hull city centre.

Quote ="Obadiah"According to the council the swimming pool and ice arena will built in round two of the new leisure company's development plans. The obvious place is West Park but they don't have control of the land. If they are built together the heat generated from one (not sure which) will provide heating for the other. It was discussed at the last Council meeting. This is the reason I suggested it. The land would also be suitable for an expansion of the college to provide a skilled workforce for the Siemens development. There are many uses for the land if the imagination is there.'" www.hulldailymail.co.uk/20m-Olym ... story.html There are already plans for the Olympic-sized pool and accompanying ice rink - in Bond street on the old Edwin Davis site behind BHS. A far more sensible location aimed to attract international events and people back to the waning shopping hub that is Hull city centre.

Good business practice is, well... good. But all game playing aside, the current deal is a bag of spanners. You've mentioned that Hull FC need certainty of costs. The operator needs certainty of income. The solution seems obvious. All the certain percentage of the gate above so many thousand, and buying up a proportion of tickets - It's just a bit weird. Clear division of responsibilities would be good all round.
It's up to the club to get folk through the doors to pay the rent and up to the operator to get best value on maintenance, to make the most of the rental income.

And the arena should be under public control.

£5.7m.