Tottenham’s new stadium, which will seat in excess of 55,000, is turning out into a controversial program with many residents being affected in North London as a result of it.
Initially, it was branded as a development that will change the face of this region, which has been severely affected as a result of the riots two years ago. However, Tottenham’s skewed plans is beginning to attract criticism from various quarters including the anti-tax avoidance committee. The land that is being used to build the stadium is registered by Tottenham in a company located in Bahamas.
This has been criticised by several officials, who say that this is a deliberate move by the club in order to benefit from any potential profits that they make from the sale of the land. If the company had been in the United Kingdom, then those profits would have been subjected to capital gains tax. The move to use a company from the Bahamas, which is a tax haven and also the home of Tottenham owner Joe Lewis, has been criticised severely. Tottenham have also applied for the planning commission to exempt them from a £ 16 million fee that is required in order to develop the infrastructure around the area.
“It depends on the precise arrangements, but if property here is owned by an offshore company, there is no corporation tax on the gain when the property is sold,” said Richard Murphy, the anti-tax avoidance campaigner of Tax Research UK. “The transfer was to clear debts out of our UK companies which had bought the properties, so the club itself is not carrying the debts. That will help with the bank financing required for the new stadium. Both this and the club are UK operating organisations and UK tax will be paid on all UK transactions,” said a Tottenham spokeswoman.
Former Tottenham captain and defender Ledley King, who retired from football a few years ago, has said that Tottenham fans completely deserve a new stadium, which is being built at a huge cost.
White Hart Lane is the current home of Tottenham and it is one of the smaller stadiums amongst the top teams in the Premier league. It has a capacity of just 37,000. This has resulted in huge waiting list for the season tickets especially given the success Tottenham have achieved in recent years. Tottenham submitted a proposal to build a new stadium that would take their capacity closer to 60,000.
It is currently being built at a cost of around £ 600 million. Tottenham tried to get the Olympic stadium, but they were unsuccessful in their bid. King, who has now become an ambassador at the club, has said that the fans have been incredibly amazing over the years and they deserve this new stadium. He has recalled how Tottenham have almost upgraded every aspect of the club like training facilities. The next logical step was to build a new stadium. Tottenham will be looking to get major portion of the cost covered through sponsorship.
Naming rights of the new stadium is expected to fetch around £ 350 million.
“I think the club deserves it and I think the fans deserves it – we’ve got a huge fan-base. We’ve moved to the new training facilities and the next step is the stadium. We’ve got the players to play in big stadiums. The club have signed players with top quality even though we’re not in the Champions League. It shows we will be a Champions League team and a club that are moving forward – the stadium is hopefully the next step towards it,” said King backing the move to the new stadium.
A chair has been appointed for the delivery of homes, jobs, and transport hubs surrounding the new stadium that is being built for Tottenham. Major Businesses Group and Tottenham Landowners took the decision of appointing Robert Evans as the new chair.
Evans comes into the role with incredible experience of having dealt with a similar development and relocation work near King’s Cross. He has been in charge of the team, which has been handling any area of just under 70 acres, for the last 12 years. Evans has been responsible for creating more than 8 million sq ft of homes, offices, and mixed development.
He has also been involved in other landmark areas like Piccadilly gardens, Piccadilly Place, and One St Peter’s Square. He expressed his delight at being able to lead a project of this magnitude. It is expected that the costs will cross the £ 500 million mark, as Spurs attempt to build a stadium that will seat close to 60,000. After managing to stage an uprising in the league over the last few years, it is believed that the development of this new stadium will take Spurs to the next level.
The total investment in the project is expected to be around the £ 1 billion mark, which makes it one of the key projects in London right now.
“I am delighted and honoured to be appointed as Chair of the group and I’m excited to be working with some of the leading organisations involved in Tottenham’s regeneration. Tottenham has amazing potential, and with nearly £1 billion of investment already agreed, I look forward to working with the group to help transform the area,” said Evans.
Councillor Alan Strickland also welcomed the appointment by saying that it is great to have a person of Evans stature leading the project.
Newcastle are one of the three English teams remaining in the Europa league after the quarter-final draw was made. The north-east club have been paired against the Portuguese club, Benfica, in this round of the competition.
After the draw was made, Newcastle manager Alan Pardew said that he was delighted at the draw. The first leg will be away from home for Newcastle, which gives them a good advantage according to Pardew. Newcastle will be focusing entirely on the European competitions this season after managing to achieve a relative position of safety in the league.
The club are three points above the drop zone with eight matches remaining in the campaign. After having not seen in European football for the last couple of years, Newcastle fans have been extremely delighted at the prospect of seeing their club in the semifinals of a major competition. In order to do so, Newcastle must get past one of the strongest teams left in the competition in the form of Benfica. The Portuguese club are undefeated in their league campaign, while they are fighting out for the title with arch rivals FC Porto.
Even though they do not represent an easy opposition, Pardew reckons that his team have what it takes to get past the Portuguese club in the quarter-finals.
“It’s a great draw for us. The Estadio da Luz is a great venue. I’ve been there and it’s a fantastic stadium. Importantly, we are at home in the second-leg and that will give us an advantage. I’m sure we will have a full house for that. After what the stadium was like (Thursday) night, I know it will be another brilliant atmosphere, and let’s hope we can bring a result back from Benfica in the first leg,” said Pardew after the draw was made for the quarter-finals.
The A-League in Australia is nearing the end of the regular season stage, as the team’s are currently entering week 24 of the 27 which make up this part of the season, and so far it has been a very impressive showing by Western Sydney – who currently sit on top of the table, two points ahead of last season’s winners, Central Coast Mariners.
It would still be possible to put a bet on which team will win the regular season, but most will be looking at placing an outright bet on the winners of the A-League after the Finals.
Of course the teams finishing first and second after the regular season do not enter the Finals until the semi-final stage – and at the moment this seems likely to be Sydney and the Mariners – which gives those teams a definite advantage.
This should be borne in mind by anyone betting, but should sides like Melbourne Victory and Brisbane Roar qualify for the finals (both of whom have two previous A-League titles) it would be a mistake to rule them out over the course of this knockout stage – even if they have to play one more game. The record of these two sides is reflected in their decent odds – 37/10 and 9/1 respectively – for the A-League title.
If you find it hard to pick a possible winner out of such successful sides as the Mariners, the Roar and the Victory, you may prefer to get your fix of football and betting by playing Soccer Safari at an online casino like LuckyNugget.
This game is one of the strangest, but most entertaining, football slot machines around, and depicts an animal world cup in the jungle. Lions, buffalo, cheetahs, giraffes and warthogs all charge around a jungle stadium, while an elephant commentates – and all this is brought to life by cutting edge video graphics. Furthermore, aside from the amusement factor, Soccer Safari also offers an $8000 maximum jackpot and a bonus game involving scoring goals from dead ball situations, which is made for football fans.
The manager of Tottenham Hotspur, Andre Villas Boas, has hailed Gareth Bale for his great form in the ongoing season and has said that the Welsh midfielder has taken his game to the next level.
Gareth Bale was terrific in Tottenham’s previous Premier league match against West Ham United. He scored a wonderful goal in the 90th minute of that match and gave the Spurs a match winning lead of 3-2.
Bale has found the net 15 times in the ongoing Premier League so far and he is currently at no. 3 in the list of leading goal scorers in the league.
In the last six matches, Bale has scored 8 goals.
Talking to the reporters after the match against West Ham United, Boas said, “Bale has been superb for us so far in the season. He has made the difference in a lot of matches.”
“I am really delighted with the way the team has bounced back in the last two matches. These types of wins give you the confidence that you can bounce back from any situation.”
Bale himself was pretty modest after putting up a match winning performance against West Ham United and he gave the credit of victory to the whole team. Bale said, “It was a team effort. It’s not that I won the match single handedly. The other players also contributed.”
“It was definitely a great result for us. We knew that Chelsea lost the match yesterday. So, we had a great chance of moving up to no. 3. But, at the same time it was essential to focus on the game and we did that well. We never let the game drift away.”
Tottenham Hotspur will take on Arsenal in its next match at the White Hart Lane on 3rd of March.
The chairman of AS Roma, James Pallotta, has announced that a new home stadium will be built for AS Roma. The stadium will be built in the Southern area of the City at a place named Tor Di Valle. The new stadium will be capable of accommodating about 60,000 people. The construction work of the stadium will be looked after by a real estate company of Italy named Grupo ParsItalia.
Pallotta said, “It’s something which has been in our mind since the last two years. Our goal is to build a stadium which will provide all kinds of facilities to the fans and will be good enough to host the final of the Champions League.”
“If everything goes according to the plan, the construction work of the stadium will get completed before the start of the 2016-17 season. Hopefully, we will succeed in building a world class stadium.”
“The stadium is going to be a big one and will have the capacity of accommodating close to 60,000 people at a time.”
“I would like to thank the officials of the Municipality of Rome who have promised to give their full support to the project.”
When asked about the location at which the stadium will be built, Pallotta said, “We had more than 100 options as far as the site of the stadium is concerned and after discussion, Tor Di Valle has been finalised as the location.”
However, Pallotta didn’t reveal the financial details of the project.
The current home stadium for Roma is Stadio Olimpico which is the home stadium for Lazio as well. Stadio Olimpico was constructed for the Olympic Games in 1960.
The CEO of Grupo ParsItalia, Luca Parnasi, was also present in the press conference.
He said, “The construction of the stadium is good for Italian economy as well because more than 1,000 jobs will be created in the next couple of years.”
The Barcelona manager Tito Vilanova has rejected suggestions that the title race is already over after the team have opened up an 11-point advantage over arch rivals Real Madrid at the top of the table.
It has been quite impressive season by Barcelona, as they have been able to enjoy a resounding start in the opening few months of the campaign. This is in sharp contrast to the form experienced by Real Madrid, who recently lost in the weekend to Real Beltis. The 1-0 defeat suffered away from home has put Real Madrid 11 points behind Barcelona in the table. They were already eight points behind them prior to the start of the match.
Many now reckoned that it will be the title to lose for Barcelona. Even though the Real Madrid manager José Mourinho has suggested that he is not giving up on the la Liga title just yet, many fear that it is a race that cannot be won now. The Barcelona manager Tito Vilanova, though, reckons that Real Madrid will not stop fighting until it is mathematically impossible to win the title. Barcelona won handsomely 4-0 away to Levante. Only Atletico Madrid are the closest to Barcelona, as the trail the Catalan club by three points.
“Not long ago we had an 11 point lead over Madrid and we ended up suffering in order to win the title. I never thought we would get to this stage of the season with such a big lead, but if there is one thing that characterises Real Madrid, it is that they fight to the end. We also have Atletico just three points behind us and that is not just luck,” said Tito Vilanova after the match. Lionel Messi was once again outstanding in the match, as he scored two goals.
Tottenham Hotspur have begun work on the proposed new stadium, which is all set to be constructed for around £ 400 million. The current capacity of the Premier league club at the Hart Lane stands at around 35,000, which is nowhere near enough to fill the demand for the seats by the fans.
As a result, Tottenham announced a few months ago that they will be building a brand-new 60,000 seater stadium that will put them on par with the archrivals Arsenal in terms of the stadium capacity. The latest you win odds suggest that they will only move into the stadium in 2016.
The work on the new stadium has begun has revealed by the club’s official website. Once done, the stadium will be one of the kind due to the fact that it will have a number of other alternatives like a commercial space and supermarket apart from the 56,000 seater stadium. The work on the supermarket is expected to begin only in September. The club have placed on the area where the stadium will be constructed. Once Tottenham move into this new stadium, the existing stadium will be demolished and 280 homes will be constructed.
“We continue to work closely with the Mayor and Haringey Council as we look to deliver this major sport-led regeneration in Tottenham,” said a statement on the official website of the club. Once the stadium is completed, a number of other developments will also be undertaken like the tube station. Roads and other public transport will also be improved in and around the stadium. Tottenham hope to recoup much of the spending in the form of the sale from the homes at the existing location.
AFC Wimbledon have said that they will be considering a partnership work for their new stadium. The Chief Executive of the club recently revealed that he is confident that the club can work with the Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium owners in order to build a new stadium at this location.
The club has expressed its interest in purchasing the location and building a new stadium. It is expected that AFC Wimbledon will be constructing a 15,000 seater stadium at this location. This follows reports from the council, who are extremely interested in seeing intensive sporting activity developed in this region.
In the original format of Wimbledon FC, the club was playing in the Plough Lane up until 1991. They were even sharing grounds with Crystal Palace at the Selhurst Park until 2002. They were also given permission to move to Milton Keynes only recently and were playing their home games at the Kingsmeadow. This ground was purchased in 2003. The Chief Executive of the club has revealed that it is extremely essential that the club moves away from its current stadium Kingsmeadow in order to progress both on and off the field. He said that the club eventually decided to build a 15,000 seat stadium ahead of the plans to construct a 25,000 seater stadium.
“[Moving] is an essential part of our business. We are constrained for growth where we are now. We can’t increase our income and get a better team and move up through the leagues on a stadium of this size. We need to move somewhere bigger and have a timescale that makes sense. It’s a combination of completing the romantic dream and the hard-nosed business thing of [the fact] we’ve got to do it. Our primary interest is in the stadium but there needs to be a development around it,” said the chief executive of AFC Wimbledon.
