Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Spurs Rage about Dirty Tottenham but Refuse to Contribute to Keeping it Clean
Confidential memos, seen by the Guardian, from senior figures in Haringey Council, highlight Spurs’ complaints that excessive levels of litter and fly-tipping in Tottenham will have a negative impact on the image of the club and its newly built stadium.
Tottenham is the 11th richest club in the world, and has invested £850m in building its new stadium on the site of the old White Hart Lane ground, but have reportedly refused to pay for a clean-up of the surrounding area.
One memo, as reported by the Guardian, written following a meeting between club officials and the council, states: “Spurs were very dismissive as to the current state/appearance of Tottenham and implied that this was not an acceptable environment for their new stadium and supporters.”
Another notes: “Spurs as you may be aware quite an aggressive operator [sic]. When the question of all the extra cleaning needed was raised and who would fund it it was made very clear that it would not be paid for by Spurs.”
According to another memo, Spurs are also demanding the council pay £500,000 to resurface part of Tottenham High Road that leads to the ground “as its appearance is detrimental to the street scene around the stadium”.
This has unsurprisingly angered locals, who have accused the club of being insensitive towards its local community which has a multitude of austerity-driven problems.
It would cost an estimated £8,000 to clean the streets after every match or event held in the ground, which Spurs could easily afford given they make an annual turnover of £306m, with a £58m profit.
One senior Labour councillor, who did not wish to be named, told the Observer: “With bigger crowds and more events, extra cleaning is going to be required around the stadium. It’s only fair that Spurs pay for it because they will be generating increased income compared to what they made at their old White Hart Lane ground.”
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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No I’m not muddling anything up. I’m pointing up principles that appear to illustrate your protective attitude to the profits Spurs make in Tottenham.
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Permalink Reply by Keats Pereira on
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We are the biggest private company on the plot. Thousands of jobs. No one asking Sainsburys next door to clean up
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Spurs profits after all deductions shown below (£41,200,000). Looks to me like Spurs can pay for a few street-sweepers after home games when they eventually get back to their own ground. Does Brent Council pick up the cost of sweeping up after 'home' games at Wembley I wonder.
"Profit from operations, excluding football trading and before exceptional items and depreciation, was £117.6m (2016: £63.3m). Profit for the year after interest and tax was £41.2m (2016: £33.0m)."
Source: https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/may-article-import/2018/financial-...
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It's no longer the Danny Blanchflower era when players' wages were capped at £100 a week.
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I took the observations of the Guardian journalist to be ones of distaste that a business making millions based in a relatively deprived neighbourhood should have the cheek to complain that it doesn't look pretty. How much better it would have come across if Spurs had said, Look we're proud of Tottenham, we want to make it look better, how can we help do that? (And then of course backed that up with some contribution of some sort).
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Spurs stayed put because, after they failed in their Olympic Stadium bid, the Council made it worth their while to stay. It was a business decision with no sentiment.
I'd be interested to understand exactly how much trickle-down there is locally. Sports businesses' primary goal is to 'pump millions' into their own coffers. The jury is out on exactly how much gets returned to the local economy. So let's not be too quick to worship at the economic altar of clubs like Spurs.
There are plenty of examples all round the world of hoped for returns to local economies on investments. A recent example has been Chinese money. Many 'recipients' who thought they were on to a sure fire winner have found that the Chinese are interested only in their own returns. The wise, like the new Malaysian Government, have cancelled previously arranged investments.
All investors are primarily interested in their own returns. What's spread around to a local economy tends to be what's needed to secure an investment and what crumbs happen to fall from the table. It's not safe to assume that 'millions' will be recirculated locally and it's quite right to ask for better from the clubs.
I took a quick look at what studies have been done on the benefits of sports stadia to local economies.
Here's one conclusion I found in a UK article from a business that manages stadium services
As a conclusion, the biggest impact of stadium development can be seen in the evolution of housing value.
Here's a view from the States:
NFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city,” said Noll, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
And from the UK's Local Economic Policy Unit:
The use of sports stadia for economic development and regeneration has gained increasingly credibility in recent years, both academically and in terms of UK urban policy. However, evidence to support the effectiveness of stadia for these purposes is highly variable.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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I suggest, Osbawn, that it's often better to start with questions rather than statements.
Each of those statements can be and has been challenged by academic researchers and investigative journalists who have examined the role of large sports businesses.Perhaps too the question of who actually funds these "community initiatives" needs looking into. including what proportion of Spurs income goes into the local area compared with that in other prominent football clubs.
Are you even prepared to hold back on your confident assumptions and assertions and treat them at least minimally as rebuttable presumptions?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I wonder if anyone has done some real, detailed work on the economic impact of the development of new football stadia (Hugh has talked about some studies in his post but I’m wondering about real detail on individual grounds and hyper local economies)?
Thinking about my home town my sister has lived in the area (Monkwearmouth) next to the Stadium of Light in Sunderland for decades, so in the period before during and after the stadium development. It was economically blighted and remains so despite the local authority more or less gifting the huge amount of the land Sunderland AFC now occupy with great promises from SAFC about how the area would be transformed. It was and remains one of the most deprived areas in the entire country (search for area Sunderland 005B in the Indices of Deprivation) with the added impact that outside of match days it is a desert, not a soul passes through the area.
I also wonder about the much vaunted regeneration of the area around the Emirates Stadium. There are some, I’m sure very nice, high value flats but I don’t see anything that has made the area economically and culturally vibrant.
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I'm not sure if any hyperlocal studies have been done.Most studies consider a number of stadia - and that seems quite right to me.
I found another study by a very authoritative group which is a collaboration between LSE, Centre for Cities, and Arup and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Transport.
They conclude:
Overall, the evidence suggests that the measurable economic effects on local economies tend not to have been large and are often zero. Facilities, however, can have a small positive impact on property prices nearby.
So the message seems to be that stadia will increase property prices but not much else.
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Permalink Reply by Charlie on
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A business cannot thrive on a spike in revenue every fortnight during the football season. They pay rent and rates daily ... to be frank those businesses would be far better off if the entire stadium area had been developed as housing. Instead of incidental income they would have benefited from daily consistent revenue. This probably applies to the entire area. A few thousand homes would have been a far more effective economic engine for Tottenham. If the club wants to impress it's clientele (and thereby boost their profits) then they should pay for it. Lastly a majority of taxes go into the central purse and are redistributed (largely out if london) so the club's tax contribution will have almost no direct impact on Tottenham itself. Stadiums are like oil resources - extract their wealth from a specific geography but benefit those in a completely different location (I doubt the chairman and his mates live in n17)
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ENIC/daniel levy have THFC £600million in debt.
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Permalink Reply by kotkas on
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One can’t expect a stadium to trigger an economic miracle in areas where there’s little to no economic baseline - Sunderland case in point. It does become a destination which has some positive side effects such as retaining the club as a major hallmark of the area and yes - it has some negative side effects such as additional rubbish etc but wasn’t that always the case, even with the old albeit smaller venue? True though they are the Spurs management comments on the state of the boroughs a PR major faux pas...
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