Long Kesh Park takes another step forward

[snatter]

First, it is estimated by PWC to cost £240m (before overruns, btw). Yep, that's two hundred and forty million big ones. For a sports stadium in the middle of agricultural land (not downtown Tokyo!), which will be used a maximum of 23 times per year. Don't try and tell me that this is better value than e.g. to divide £80million between the three codes to use as they see best, put another £80m into all the other sports played in NI (remember them?) and then put the remaining £80m to frivolous luxuries like schools and hospitals etc.

Sorry you're totally ignoring my point about how allocation of any mythical pot must be made along lines of real need, not a straight three way split.

It all boils down to knowing that if you guys are sitting cosy in your all covered all seater, with site given for free by BCC, then we get treated the same.
We will not tolerate our much bigger crowds still having to stand in driving rain.
We will not tolerate you guys getting a free site while we don't.
We will not tolerate you guys having to pay proportionately less for your stadium.

Also remember - from the outset, it has been made clear that this is UK treasury money, not money alloacted to NI Plc.
If we don't use this money to build one symbolic shared space stadium, it will be returned to the UK exchequer.
And in the current fiscal environment, believe me, they will take it back.

[Main Street]

FFS It really isn't that difficult, the report says that the stadium will cost £240 million but have a net cost of £37 million after four years at just under 500K spectators per year. Therefore £203 million will be paid by just under 2 million spectators, so over £100 per punter.

Apparantly it is impossible for you to understand how PWC calculate their figures otherwise you wouldn't be dogmatically sticking to your ticket revenue statement and that they are biased against Belfast location.

Dogma =  sticking to your point of view, unsupported and contradicted by the facts.

As I have pointed out with reference to the specific tables in the report and with evidential reference to the figures used
for each stadium site.
You are writing bull
The PWC report states
A. Ticket revenue is only a part of the cost benifit to each sporting body which also includes sponsorship, advertising tv revenue  etc
B. The PWC figures show that Belfast location would generate more income, this is explained by that visitors would spend more there that at the Maze.

[feetofflames]

Fair play snatter, but you are pissing against a wall.  The only language these guys know is blackmail.  The English Governement need to offer the money to coperative bodies only, go ahead, stop funding windsor, build the stadium and they will come on board in time.  You have to be cruel to be kind to no men.  It appears that the GAA knows whats better for their struggling rival organisation than the soccor moguls in University avenue themselves.   In time they will thank us. Why were all the smart men born in Ireland GAA men.  

[snatter]

2005 Ulster Teams Championship attendances.
(NOTE that these exclude the qualifier series matches).

USFC: Armagh V Tyrone	61000
USFC: Replay Armagh V Tyrone	32000
USFC: Derry V Armagh	27633
USFC: Donegal V Armagh	25622
USFC: Tyrone V Cavan	23441
USFC: Armagh V Fermanagh	23107
USFC: Replay Armagh V Donegal	18227
USFC: Tyrone V Down	18200
USFC: Replay Tyrone V Cavan	16492
USFC: Monaghan V Derry	16314
USFC: Cavan V Antrim	10500
USFC: Replay Cavan V Antrim	3865
AIQF: Tyrone V Dublin	78514
AIQF: Armagh V Laois	32187
AISF: Tyrone V Armagh	65858
AIF: Tyrone V Kerry	82112

Note that these are official figures.
Earlier round games in particular will probably show figures lower than the real attendances - Non-paying kids aren't taken into account.

Second, by your own 2005 figures, Ulster GAA simply does not need a 42k stadium. Of the 16 matches you list, 1., 13., 15. and 16. attracted crowds far too big for the Maze, so would have to be played at Croke Park.

Match 1 was at Croker.
Match 2 (the repplay) was a capacity crowd at Clones.
The combined attendance of both matches was 93000.
Two 42k capacities would give a combined 84000 attendances, which isn't that far from what we got.
It is notable that Croekr is now generally unavailable for Ulster matches - especially after we generously allowed soccer and rugby to camp there.
If the same two matches were played now, we would have a forced combined attendance of 64000.
If anything, these two matches underline just how much we could do with the Maze!

Matches 15 & 16 would almost certainly continue to be played in Croker as thye are the AISF and AIF.

The crowds for the remaining 12 matches varied from 10,500 to 32,187 (plus the anomaly of the 3,865 Cavan/Antrim replay), which equals an average of 20,632. Clearly, with 42k GAA places, the Maze would be too big.

Not so, again some of these attendances were constrained by capacity.
I can't recall offhand exactly which ones, but my guess is that a fair few were played at Omagh (capacity back then of 20 something thousand?).

Have you read my earlier post - the one in which the GAA itself establishes that it does indeed need a 40k + stadium in Ulster?

Did you read within the same post that UCC economists have independently verified the attendance assumptions and costings?

Did you notice that the attendance figures used in the justification were from the early 1990's?
Championshiop attendances have actually gone up markedly since then.

If the GAA itself and independent economists both agree that it does need, and can afford to build a 40k capaity stadium in Ulster, what makes you feel qualified to say that they don't?

THE NEED HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED.
THE MAZE MEETS THAT NEED.
IF ITS BUILT, THE GAA WILL HEAVILY USE IT. FULL STOP.

Remember, too, that the GAA would have to pay rent to HMG, plus VAT (avoided at Clones) and also see all their many existing Ulster stadia sit empty, whilst showpiece games were played on someone elses property.

The GAA certainly aren't in the business of making major decisions on ill-costed grounds.
It will alerady have satisfied itself that it makes financial sense to use the Maze.

Its pretty obvious (even to an untrained accountant like SammyG)  that renting the MAze at pretty low rental rates is far batter than having to sink 10's of millions of our own money into a lesser standard stadium of our own.

When it comes to moeny, the GAA are cute hoors.

Maybe I'm missing something (on my second point, at least), but surely to goodness a significant cash injection from the money saved by scrapping the Maze could be better used by the GAA - e.g. cover, toilets, facilities etc at Casement, Healy Park etc?

You are missing something - if you guys are sitting in an all seated, all covered stadium, tailored to your attendance needs, then we wnat the same.
We won't be satisfied with anything less.
Better toilets just won't do.
Croppies lie down no longer mate.

[SammyG]

FFS It really isn't that difficult, the report says that the stadium will cost £240 million but have a net cost of £37 million after four years at just under 500K spectators per year. Therefore £203 million will be paid by just under 2 million spectators, so over £100 per punter.

Apparantly it is impossible for you to understand how PWC calculate their figures otherwise you wouldn't be dogmatically sticking to your ticket revenue statement and that they are biased against Belfast location.

Dogma =  sticking to your point of view, unsupported and contradicted by the facts.

As I have pointed out with reference to the specific tables in the report and with evidential reference to the figures used
for each stadium site.
You are writing bull
The PWC report states
A. Ticket revenue is only a part of the cost benifit to each sporting body which also includes sponsorship, advertising tv revenue  etc
B. The PWC figures show that Belfast location would generate more income, this is explained by that visitors would spend more there that at the Maze.

All of that is correct (except PWCs figures are nonsense but that's a different argument) but it has nothing to do wth the point I'm making. It would be like me saying that a Ford Mondeo cost £18000 and you saying I'm wrong because an Astra only costs £15000.

[snatter]

FFS It really isn't that difficult, the report says that the stadium will cost £240 million but have a net cost of £37 million after four years at just under 500K spectators per year. Therefore £203 million will be paid by just under 2 million spectators, so over £100 per punter.

One further quick point occurs. If they are to stage 23 events per year, but only attract 500k spectators, that works out at just over 21k spectators per event. Why does the stadium need to hold 42k spectators, then?

Remember that the original proposal was for a far more appropriate 28k seater stadium. Until the GAA intervened and demanded it be bigger (with a much higher associated construction cost, btw). Might this not be because they already have a number of small-to-medium stadia of their own in Ulster, plus a bloody massive one in Croke, so an "inbetween" stadium might occasionally come in handy if it were going to be "free"?

Remember that the GAA's own spectator figures (as per Snatter) indicate that it is too small for a few GAA matches and too big for the rest. Seems very wasteful to me.

And that's before the difficulties it causes for soccer and rugby...

id say you arent far wrong there EG, at 28k its too small for say an ulster final but would be too big for national league games etc.

i still think the gaa would prefer to be thrown a few quid to improve a couple of their grounds and the rugby would still prefer to be given some money to improve ravenhill.
the whole project still looks like it would be very difficult to achieve.

Well the GAA disagree with you.
The Maze is a practical giveaway compared with having to upgrade one of our own stadia to anything even close in quality.

Go and read my earlier post on the GAA's strategic review stadium recommendations, and the UCC economists verification of them.

[Evil Genius]

First, it is estimated by PWC to cost £240m (before overruns, btw). Yep, that's two hundred and forty million big ones. For a sports stadium in the middle of agricultural land (not downtown Tokyo!), which will be used a maximum of 23 times per year. Don't try and tell me that this is better value than e.g. to divide £80million between the three codes to use as they see best, put another £80m into all the other sports played in NI (remember them?) and then put the remaining £80m to frivolous luxuries like schools and hospitals etc.

Sorry you're totally ignoring my point about how allocation of any mythical pot must be made along lines of real need, not a straight three way split.

Nowhere have I said that whatever money is released by scrapping the Maze should be split exactly equally between the three codes, so don't make false assumptions or cast false aspersions.
I would be perfectly happy to accept an independently assessed split. (Which, btw, would mean Ulster Rugby getting v.little, on the basis (a) it has by far the lowest participation levels of the three codes; (b) it attracts the fewest spectators; (c) it has already received significant grants etc to redevelop Ravenhill and (d) Ravenhill is now pretty much adequate for 90% of its games)

It all boils down to knowing that if you guys are sitting cosy in your all covered all seater, with site given for free by BCC, then we get treated the same.
We will not tolerate our much bigger crowds still having to stand in driving rain.
We will not tolerate you guys getting a free site while we don't.
We will not tolerate you guys having to pay proportionately less for your stadium.

For someone who is clearly so aggrieved at our "luxury" versus your "spartan" facilities, your demand for the Maze overlooks one very pertinent point. If/when the Maze is built, I've no doubt it will be very comfortable. Fine - I don't begrudge GAA or Rugby fans that for one moment. But that will only be a comfort for 5 or 6 GAA games per year. Existing GAA stadia will still be as crap as ever for all the other games which are played in them (or are they going to lie unused after the Maze opens?).
Whereas, by scrapping the Maze, this would free up millions for the GAA to use to upgrade their existing stadia to a decent, acceptable level!
[Btw, it is not NI soccer's choice to be all-seater, rather it is a FIFA demand. Many of us would much prefer to be allowed to stand on the terraces]

Also remember - from the outset, it has been made clear that this is UK treasury money, not money alloacted to NI Plc.
If we don't use this money to build one symbolic shared space stadium, it will be returned to the UK exchequer.
And in the current fiscal environment, believe me, they will take it back.

That was the blackmail put around by the previous administration prior to the restoration of devolved powers. Since then, many of the players behind this (e.g. Hansen) have moved back to GB, so no longer give a stuff. And the fact that Robinson actually has the power to pull the plug on the Maze suggests that he also has the power to re-allocate that money which was formerly ring-fenced (or at least benefit from the proceeds of the development of extra land at the Maze which would be released by the scrapping of the Stadim). Otherwise, why would he look a gift horse in the mouth, scrap the "free" Maze Stadium and STILL have to find the money for soccer's overriding need (or see the NI team play permanently overseas?). Whatever else he is, Robinson's not that stupid!

[Evil Genius]

Fair play snatter, but you are pissing against a wall.  The only language these guys know is blackmail.  The English Governement need to offer the money to coperative bodies only, go ahead, stop funding windsor, build the stadium and they will come on board in time.  You have to be cruel to be kind to no men.  It appears that the GAA knows whats better for their struggling rival organisation than the soccor moguls in University avenue themselves.   In time they will thank us. Why were all the smart men born in Ireland GAA men.  

The UK Government is NOT funding Windsor - that's the whole problem!

If it were doing so, as it has done to the tune of hundreds of millions for England/Wembley, Scotland/Hampden and Wales/Millennium, then we wouldn't have to even consider the Maze. And we not talking huge numbers, either. My guess is that £20m TOPS would see WP upgraded to an acceptable 25k capacity. Compare that with the expenditure of a minimum of £240m on the Maze (for 4-5 soccer matches p.a.), plus ongoing maintenace costs of several millions per year.

P.S. Just so you won't feel too oppressed, I would be more than happy to see the GAA receive a fair share of the £240m+ to be saved by scrapping the Maze. Or is that not the sort of language you understand? 

[Main Street]

All of that is correct (except PWCs figures are nonsense but that's a different argument) but it has nothing to do wth the point I'm making. It would be like me saying that a Ford Mondeo cost £18000 and you saying I'm wrong because an Astra only costs £15000.

No Sammy, it is correct because my figures of the PWC report come from reading it, understanding it, referring to the actual information and tables contained in the report and seeing through your bull.

It is indeed another argument about the credibility value of PWC's figures.

[Donagh]

Not sure how you work that out. What it means is that we can now look at the needs of sports rather than the needs of a few eejits in the NIO/Lisburn Council. We can look at the various options for football (Blanchflower, North Foreshore, Titanic Quarter, upgrade WP etc) and choose the one that's best for us. At the same time, the GAA, Ulster Rugby (and all the other sports) can do the same thing. Everybody (except Poots) wins.

You know as well as I do that the DUP are going to veto Maze because they can't stand having to share it with Fenians. If they use their veto, then there will be no stadium and your pals will be catching the boat to England while we continue to Clones.

[Donagh]

Donagh, get real.

we need a new stadium as well.
The only difference between us and the IFA is that their needs are immediate, while ours are medium term.
Read the posts below.

As you say we have no immediate need and we have the resources to build or overhaul one ourselves without having to wait for Stormont - a luxury the IFA don't have. 

[SammyG]

You know as well as I do that the DUP are going to veto Maze because they can't stand having to share it with Fenians.

You seem to be fixated on Fenians for some reason and as usual ignore the fact that football and rugby are already cross-community. The DUP (as with all the parties) have people who support the Maze and people who oppose it but the issue is not about support, it is a purely financial decision. If Pete the Punt spent £240 million on a white elephant he would be legally accountable for that spend. Now that the business case has (finally) been released, a blind man on a charging horse can see that it doesn't add up, so he has no choice, legally, other than to pulll the plug.

If they use their veto, then there will be no stadium and your pals will be catching the boat to England while we continue to Clones.

No idea what that is meant to mean, apart from your usual veiled threats. As I've already said any application for a new stadium will be dealt with on it's merits (as the Maze was) and accepted or rejected on that basis. Doesn't matter if the stadium is for football, rugby, GAA, field hockey, athletics or hare coursing, it will stand or fall on it's merits.

[snatter]

First, it is estimated by PWC to cost £240m (before overruns, btw). Yep, that's two hundred and forty million big ones. For a sports stadium in the middle of agricultural land (not downtown Tokyo!), which will be used a maximum of 23 times per year. Don't try and tell me that this is better value than e.g. to divide £80million between the three codes to use as they see best, put another £80m into all the other sports played in NI (remember them?) and then put the remaining £80m to frivolous luxuries like schools and hospitals etc.

Sorry you're totally ignoring my point about how allocation of any mythical pot must be made along lines of real need, not a straight three way split.

Nowhere have I said that whatever money is released by scrapping the Maze should be split exactly equally between the three codes, so don't make false assumptions or cast false aspersions.

Correct.
And nowhere did you say exactly how you propsoed to split the money, so I just reaffirmed what I had previously posted,
ie any allocation to develop stadia facilities must be done proportional to real need, as demostrated by real attendance figures.

I would be perfectly happy to accept an independently assessed split. (Which, btw, would mean Ulster Rugby getting v.little, on the basis (a) it has by far the lowest participation levels of the three codes; (b) it attracts the fewest spectators; (c) it has already received significant grants etc to redevelop Ravenhill and (d) Ravenhill is now pretty much adequate for 90% of its games)

In principle, yes that is what we would look for.
But your criteria is flawed - if these funds are ringfenced for stadium development, then attendance should be the sole criteria.

I fail to see how participation rates relate to stadium usage.

Should the IFA get 10's millions extra for a stadium because they can get more people to play Sunday Saturday league soccer, but can't attrract moer than 15k to watch NI at any new east belfast stadium?

Surely the only factor is the real attendances for each sport.
The funding is for much needed development of inadequate stadia to modern standards.

It all boils down to knowing that if you guys are sitting cosy in your all covered all seater, with site given for free by BCC, then we get treated the same.
We will not tolerate our much bigger crowds still having to stand in driving rain.
We will not tolerate you guys getting a free site while we don't.
We will not tolerate you guys having to pay proportionately less for your stadium.

For someone who is clearly so aggrieved at our "luxury" versus your "spartan" facilities, your demand for the Maze overlooks one very pertinent point. If/when the Maze is built, I've no doubt it will be very comfortable. Fine - I don't begrudge GAA or Rugby fans that for one moment. But that will only be a comfort for 5 or 6 GAA games per year. Existing GAA stadia will still be as crap as ever for all the other games which are played in them (or are they going to lie unused after the Maze opens?).
Whereas, by scrapping the Maze, this would free up millions for the GAA to use to upgrade their existing stadia to a decent, acceptable level!
[Btw, it is not NI soccer's choice to be all-seater, rather it is a FIFA demand. Many of us would much prefer to be allowed to stand on the terraces]

The GAA has less of a problem building say 5k stands at County grounds, eg as recently done in Newry. These are suitable for National league games an lesser championship matches.

The gap in our resources is at a higher level.
We have failed to safely & comfortably accomodate the higher crowds that go to larger championship matches.
Historically we haven't been able to direct sufficient resources to fund development of a proper higher capacity stadium.
The mooted shared stadium would plug this gap for us.
That's why the GAA support it.

Also remember - from the outset, it has been made clear that this is UK treasury money, not money alloacted to NI Plc.
If we don't use this money to build one symbolic shared space stadium, it will be returned to the UK exchequer.
And in the current fiscal environment, believe me, they will take it back.

That was the blackmail put around by the previous administration prior to the restoration of devolved powers. Since then, many of the players behind this (e.g. Hansen) have moved back to GB, so no longer give a stuff. And the fact that Robinson actually has the power to pull the plug on the Maze suggests that he also has the power to re-allocate that money which was formerly ring-fenced (or at least benefit from the proceeds of the development of extra land at the Maze which would be released by the scrapping of the Stadim). Otherwise, why would he look a gift horse in the mouth, scrap the "free" Maze Stadium and STILL have to find the money for soccer's overriding need (or see the NI team play permanently overseas?). Whatever else he is, Robinson's not that stupid!

well, I haven't heard anything to contradict the original
In a way I hope that it is a case of use it or lose it.
Forcing you guys to share might be the only way that the GAA get a substantively public funded stadium.

[Main Street]

The UK Government is NOT funding Windsor - that's the whole problem!

If it were doing so, as it has done to the tune of hundreds of millions for England/Wembley, Scotland/Hampden and Wales/Millennium, then we wouldn't have to even consider the Maze. And we not talking huge numbers, either. My guess is that £20m TOPS would see WP upgraded to an acceptable 25k capacity. Compare that with the expenditure of a minimum of £240m on the Maze (for 4-5 soccer matches p.a.), plus ongoing maintenace costs of several millions per year.

P.S. Just so you won't feel too oppressed, I would be more than happy to see the GAA receive a fair share of the £240m+ to be saved by scrapping the Maze. Or is that not the sort of language you understand? 

You cant give out what you don't have in the first place, especially if the conditions for the promise don't exist anymore.

Costs of the Maze are close to £190m near enough a 55/45 split for constr and infrastr.
Possibly you are including what the State would gain by selling the land for housing + business

No matter where a stadium is built the costs are going to be enormous.
I don´t know why those cost figures for British stadiums (refixes or rebuilt) cant be translated to Ireland.
A Belfast soccer stadium is going to cost a relative fortune, Howard has been trying to have his voice heard that the IFA are skint and don't even earn enough each year to pay for his hairdresser.

[Donagh]

You know as well as I do that the DUP are going to veto Maze because they can't stand having to share it with Fenians.

You seem to be fixated on Fenians for some reason and as usual ignore the fact that football and rugby are already cross-community. The DUP (as with all the parties) have people who support the Maze and people who oppose it but the issue is not about support, it is a purely financial decision. If Pete the Punt spent £240 million on a white elephant he would be legally accountable for that spend. Now that the business case has (finally) been released, a blind man on a charging horse can see that it doesn't add up, so he has no choice, legally, other than to pulll the plug.

If they use their veto, then there will be no stadium and your pals will be catching the boat to England while we continue to Clones.

No idea what that is meant to mean, apart from your usual veiled threats. As I've already said any application for a new stadium will be dealt with on it's merits (as the Maze was) and accepted or rejected on that basis. Doesn't matter if the stadium is for football, rugby, GAA, field hockey, athletics or hare coursing, it will stand or fall on it's merits.

Sammy, you have a vested interest in opposing the Maze/Long Kesh stadium so I expect you to try and ridicule the PWC report, even if you haven't managed to do it very successfully on this thread so far. Now, if (and that's a very big if) the case doesn't stack up when the land is coming for free then it's hardly likely to stack up anywhere else. Besides, the GAA have already said that none of the other sites are suitable for our games. So what you are left with is the zero sum game of the DUP vetoing the Maze and SF vetoing any other venue. You don't get a stadium and we go ahead and plough our own furrow. The only loser I see here is the IFA and their supporters.