Which football stadium is the biggest self-inflicted disaster of all time?

 

 

 

• Putting aside the goalless affair, what about Inter?

By Tony Attwood

We recently commented upon the dissatisfaction of West Ham fans with their Olympic Stadium, given to them by the UK state and which many WHAM fans hate. We have also noticed the oddities in that financial deal.  Now moving on we are taking a look at the effect of Tottenham’s stadium.

Now you may have noticed that yesterday was the final of the Africa Cup.  It was, according to reports, utter chaos.

We’ve not covered it because a) Untold Arsenal, since its foundation, has argued that football between nations is an unwarranted and unnecessary interruption to club football, and b) it is a form of football in which the countries playing take no responsibility for the long-term welfare of their players.  A player gets injured, and he/she is sent back to the club that pays the wages with a note saying “have him/her ready for the next game”.

Our view is that country v country football should be banned, or failing that, the clubs should take back control and determine when these tournaments are going to be played, and the compensation they should get from countries for a) having the players and b) their inevitable injuries.

Also, the clubs should have their medical teams at each international camp deciding if their players are fit to play or not, and should be allowed to offer high rewards to their players who refuse to join in the malarky.  Players should also be told that if they get injured on “international duty” (a misnomer if ever there was one) the club will not pay their wages until they are fit again.   This would leave the player free to negotiate injury compensation with his country, should he/she wish to play for them.

All that is fairly simple, but of course, none of this is to say that football clubs themselves are not capable of screwing up their own situation.

For example, on 3 April 2019, Tottenham Hots opened their new ground.  The day before the ground opened, the league table showed Tottenham in fourth, just behind Arsenal with both clubs a long way behind ManC and Liverpool.

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	32	24	7	1	72	19	53	79
2	Manchester City	31	25	2	4	81	21	60	77
3	Arsenal	31	19	6	6	65	39	26	63
4	Tottenham Hotspur	31	20	1	10	58	34	24	61

 

That table shows Tottenham running at 1.97 points a game and 1.87 goals a game.

Today the league table shows a different picture…

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	22	15	5	2	40	14	26	50
2	Manchester City	22	13	4	5	45	21	24	43
4	Liverpool	22	10	6	6	33	29	4	36
14	Tottenham Hotspur	22	7	6	9	31	29	2	27

 

Tottenham are running this season at 1.23 points a game and 1.40 goals a game.  In other words, during the lifetime of their new stadium with all its razzamattaz and whizzo extra features, moveable whatnots and other dodahs, the club has seen a 38% decline in its points per game, and a 26% decline in its goals per game.  Oh yes, and the arrest of their owner, who was found guilty of various criminal charges, which were subsequently annulled by President Trump by diktat.

Now of course, those figures include home and away games, but we can also compare Tottenham’s home form before and since, just to se the impact on the club of the new stadium.

Premier League table at close of play, recording home matches only

 

 

Now of course that final line is only an estimate based on the season so far, and it is possible that Tottenham Ho will will win all eight of its remaining home games But even if it dopes that will still be THE WORST TOTTENHAM HOME RECORD in the seasons noted above, equal only to 2020/21.  And that’s winning all eight.

So, in footballing terms, the new stadium has probably been the biggest self-inflicted disaster ever witnessed by a football club.  Although interestingly, I have not noticed any of the media pointing this out.

If you wanted to harm a professional football club in terms of its results what would you do?

1. Build a new stadium and suggest that the building of the stadium had no impact on the club being able to buy players, when it fact it would.
2. Have at least one major director or shareholder found guilty of criminal activity in relation to finances.
3. Have Donald Trump pardon the director and give him a get out of jail free card.
4. Insist everything is ok, and persuade the media to agree.
5. Change managers at least every two years – more often when possible.
6. Fail to get a naming sponsor for the stadium after announcing during the building process that this was a central plank of the financing of the stadium.
7. Claim the stadium will only hold six concerts a year, but then unilaterally up that to 30 concerts thus annoying all the residents nearby, only to fail to attract concert organisers – thus effectively annoying concert goers and non-concert goers alike.
8. Get the finances wrong so that the club has the biggest debt of any European football club at £1,177 billion, with no viable way of getting that debt reduced.
9. Fail to get a single reasonable bid for buying the naming rights because of the toxic nature of the stadium’s reputation in the world of business.
10. Lose a third of your home football games since moving in.

And there we are it is all done.  Dead Simple.

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