Potential New Ground

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Foley said:
NO WAY.
MK? I would never ever watch us in MK and suspect many many would feel the same
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I think we need to be open minded and prepared to tough it out if we are negotiating with Kassam.

I don't think it would be that terrible filling Stadium MK in the Championship whilst MK sink down.
 
Wasn’t it the end of 2019 we were originally meant to be hearing something? Then it was the end of last season. Then it was the end of 2020. And so on. And so on. And so on. Think the moral of the story is simply wait and see, and ignore anybody constantly making claims of timelines and developments on the off chance they get something right.

Expect the worst and hope for the best. Although the worst, ie another 25 years in that dump, sounds awful. Imagine the state of the toilets by 2051.
 
Robie said:
Obviously whilst we build a new stadium or Kassam is forced into selling/negotiating at a fair price.
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Well yes, but that's exactly the problem.

As yet, we have nobody building us a new stadium with five years to go until we need to either sign up or ship out. That could happen - but what if it doesn't? We can't play in MK indefinitely.

And why/how would Kassam be forced into selling at any price other than the one he wants to ask? He holds all the cards there, we are just tenants with a now short term lease to play in his property. If we strop off, he knocks it down and builds housing. That's not exactly a strong negotiating position.
 
bashamwonderland said:
Jesus Christ another 20 years at the kassam 😭

Even if the deal is done for a new stadium today - is 2026 early enough for us to be in? We're cutting it fine (though I imagine purchasing the kassam is our plan)
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Absolutely it's cutting it fine. Also, it's not just the new stadium. It's all the infrastructure around it which would make the multimillion pound investment viable. Even then, there is no evidenceto date as where such investment is coming from. Increasingly it seems to me that a new deal on the Kassam is Plan A and B. That could be viable if it was indeed a new deal and not just another 20 years of the present one.
 
Consider this. We are told that the stadium currently costs the club £1m a year in rent and service charge for a licence on very poor terms. If, (and it's a very big if) the club could borrow £20m at 5% pa, and if (another big if) for that money the club could buy the stadium and have enough left over, say £5m, to put it in good order, the cost of that borrowing at that rate would be....£1m a year. Now, were told that as things stand the club is sustainable on that figure but how much more sustainable would it be if for the same outgoing it owned the stadium and had refurbished it.
I accept that this may be a simplistic and possibly naive view given all that has gone before between the Owner and the Club and the figures I've suggested may be wildly out. But much has changed in commerce over the past 12 months. The world of commercial property is in a totally different place than it was a year ago. What may have been unrealistic then may not be so today. There may be a deal to be done that could bring both parties to the negotiating table.
 
Robie said:
I think we need to be open minded and prepared to tough it out if we are negotiating with Kassam.

I don't think it would be that terrible filling Stadium MK in the Championship whilst MK sink down.
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For a few years?
A horrendous place. No way would we 'fill the place' . Look at other clubs that have had yo play elsewhere.
If it was 6 months or a year whilst a ground was being built then fine. But a few years? In MK? No thanks
 
arthurturner said:
Consider this. We are told that the stadium currently costs the club £1m a year in rent and service charge for a licence on very poor terms. If, (and it's a very big if) the club could borrow £20m at 5% pa, and if (another big if) for that money the club could buy the stadium and have enough left over, say £5m, to put it in good order, the cost of that borrowing at that rate would be....£1m a year. Now, were told that as things stand the club is sustainable on that figure but how much more sustainable would it be if for the same outgoing it owned the stadium and had refurbished it.
I accept that this may be a simplistic and possibly naive view given all that has gone before between the Owner and the Club and the figures I've suggested may be wildly out. But much has changed in commerce over the past 12 months. The world of commercial property is in a totally different place than it was a year ago. What may have been unrealistic then may not be so today. There may be a deal to be done that could bring both parties to the negotiating table.
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I think that your numbers are well out.
The chance is if FK needs the cash and reduces the price of the stadium, but the likelihood is that he would prefer oufc to move out and build houses....
 
They don`t build "nice" (expensive) houses on reclaimed land.
The nice houses will go on the nice green fields opposite.
At best the Kassam would get a proportionally "cheap" housing stock, maybe Council/Housing Association box`s.
Then there is the small matter/cost of clearing the site and making it ready for housing.

The world has changed rather a lot over the last year or so and many people will have shifted their position, interesting times ahead.
 
ZeroTheHero said:
Well yes, but that's exactly the problem.

As yet, we have nobody building us a new stadium with five years to go until we need to either sign up or ship out. That could happen - but what if it doesn't? We can't play in MK indefinitely.

And why/how would Kassam be forced into selling at any price other than the one he wants to ask? He holds all the cards there, we are just tenants with a now short term lease to play in his property. If we strop off, he knocks it down and builds housing. That's not exactly a strong negotiating position.
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Our negotiating position would be much stronger if the housing option was not an option for Kassam.
The stadium already has Community Assist status.
If it was the preferred choice of the Council to retain and improve the whole site as a community hub, and there was someone prepared to pay for it for them, then Kassam’s hope of building houses could disappear.

It’s entirely possible our fate lies within the hands of the Council coupled with the ambitions of the current Board rather than Kassam.

Only time will tell.
 
We show Kassam we CAN go elsewhere if he is unreasonable. The council show Kassam they are not willing to allow him to develop housing on a community asset. Kassam can't sell the site for housing development. The price reduces.

Supply and Demand.... we need to show Kassam in one way or another we are not restricted by supply... this is why the club keep talking about all the other sites but until something concrete is done it wont help negotiations with Kassam.
 
Robie said:
We show Kassam we CAN go elsewhere if he is unreasonable. The council show Kassam they are not willing to allow him to develop housing on a community asset. Kassam can't sell the site for housing development. The price reduces.

Supply and Demand.... we need to show Kassam in one way or another we are not restricted by supply... this is why the club keep talking about all the other sites but until something concrete is done it wont help negotiations with Kassam.
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Unfortunately, the council needs housing. They certainly need it more than they need an unused sports stadium in the area if we go elsewhere. It's only a community asset so long as we want to play there. If we leave, that will lapse (IIRC).

And if 'showing Kassam where we CAN go' is MK then I think he'd call our bluff pretty quickly if preparatory work on (and funding for) a new stadium wasn't much more advanced than it seems to be at present.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to move or even for us to buy the stadium (as the lesser evil than signing for another 25 years) but unless and until there is a backer willing to spend a lot of money for what seems like an uncertain gain, I can't see either of them happening. I desperately want ST (or his backers) to prove me wrong.

If it were so easy to get Kassam to reduce the price, it would have been done by now.
 
horseman said:
Signing another lease by people who will not be here to see it through, have we learned nothing from that horrendous mistake.
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I think everyone (owner and supporters) knows what problems the deal has caused for us, and that the cost of playing at Grenoble Road really holds us back.

The question is though : what do we do instead if a new stadium isn't a good way along by 2026?
 
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