I don’t think any of that should come as a surprise to anybody. The timescales were always going to be tight and any delays would impact on that.
One of the most frustrating things is that this could have been avoided years ago. Love him or hate him, Charlie Methven developed a plan for a site adjacent to Oxford Parkway back in 2014. This was originally done for Ian Lenagan who recognised the constraints of the current stadium, but with the sale of the club it was hoped that Darryl Eales would take this forward. Unfortunately, he appeared to have neither the foresight nor the funds to take this forward. He was supported in his position by an unpublished report from OxVox which was verbally presented to members in August 2016 with the conclusion that staying at the KasStad was the only viable option for the club. I queried those findings and was heavily criticised by one particular OxVox committee member who, in a nutshell, said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Fast forward and that committee member is now an Associate Director at the club and heavily involved with, and advocate for, the move from the KasStad…
Back in 2014/15/16, Kassam would actually have paid the club a decent sum to leave the ground (rumoured to be £6m). Again, fast forward and we are in a position where there is no financial incentive for Kassam to encourage us to leave early and, instead, it looks like we are going to end up paying him even more money to remain in situ, for the short term at least.
To be honest, I’m becoming increasingly concerned that Thohir, Bakrie and co have been sold a pup. Thohir’s experience with the DC United stadium is one where the local authority would grease the wheels for the development, and provide substantial public funding based on the expectation that their outlay would be recouped through increased spending in the area, rising property taxes etc etc. The landscape in the UK is very different with much greater obstacles to overcome, and greater outlay required from the private developer. I truly hope I’m wrong, but until we some something tangible, i.e. the planning application, my doubts are going to grow.
