Whistleblower

SteMerritt said:
Can I just say at this point can we show @Robie a touch more respect please, a known poster on here, and not lump him in with the two new accounts who have no posting history.

Debate robustly of course, that goes without saying (although I just did)...
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Yes, I agree with that. Just guilty of being naive, whereas the other two are scum &"+* like I said before.
 
Manorlounger said:
7. You are incredibly naive and have little understanding of the arrangements between OUFC and Stadco.
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The only understanding I have of the arrangements between OUFC and Stadco is what I have read on here over many years.
 
Robie said:
The only understanding I have of the arrangements between OUFC and Stadco is what I have read on here over many years.
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Then you ought to be aware that OUFC do not have a 'lease' with Kassam. The club has a 'Licence' to operate as a football club from the stadium. That licence does not operate in the same manner as a lease.
 
Robie said:
Okay so I can completely understand the reaction so here is why I chose to put my head over the parapet and provide some corroboration. Clearly I have not been told as much as the original poster nor would I expect to be. I am generally a glass half full person and maybe see the benefits of this more than most. I have previously suggested a groundshare to bridge the gap between our lease with FK and a new stadium and I feel we need to as supporters remain open minded and supportive of those at the club that appear to have the best interests at heart.

I have not been told any more and will not be told any more but this is a sequence of events I am wildly guessing may have happened to justify why this might not be bullshit.

1 - OUFC enter into a crippling lease with the Kassam with an option to renew on the same terms for the same length of time at the end of the lease.
2 - New owner comes in sees the lease is crippling the club, initially tries to negotiate it down and then takes FK to arbitration based on a technicality, fails spectacularly.
3 - Tiger comes in and tries more kindness to get the lease sorted. Meanwhile the lease is running further down.
4 - Tiger plans to build a stadium this will take a bit longer than our current lease but not the 25 years (?) that the automatic renewal will afford.
5 - Tiger and co try to negotiate a shorter lease, FK says no thanks.... 25 years or nothing.... Tigers team say no we can go and play somewhere else and we can do that right away due to something in the lease that allows us to get out of it early / pay less if we aren't playing there / whatever with the last 3 or so years remaining on the lease.
6 - FK says that you have informed us you are terminating our lease so you will be evicted at the end of the season.

I personally would follow my club wherever it needs to go to be free of the ties of Kassam that has been crippling our club for so long. I have faith in the new owners and this is backed up by the club turning a recent profit and success on the pitch.
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So why would we not just play out the last four or five years at Grenoble Road and *then* groundshare, if this is the plan? Saying to Uncle Firoz that we don't intend to renew the lease at the end would not be grounds for him to terminate it now. If we moved immediately to groundshare with another club, it would cost a fortune - we would still have to pay to play there, the crowds would plummet, etc etc etc. And all this is being done when we have not started to build a new place or (so far as planning etc is concerned) not publicly got permission to do so or even started that process? It would be complete madness - and so far as brinkmanship with Kassam is concerned completely useless. He *wants* us to b****r off. The land is worth more to him with us gone. If we go, the sporting covenant on the stadium will be revoked and he will make a fortune.

So. It doesn't make sense at all, and it is obviously a total coincidence that it is posted on here mere minutes after we have got into the play offs, by a new poster. Who is then backed up by another new poster? When we have just pissed Portsmouth off (again) and our most despised rivals have been relegated?

I'm no Hercule Poirot, but...
 
Robie said:
The only understanding I have of the arrangements between OUFC and Stadco is what I have read on here over many years.
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But you must know that bullshit is a lot different to reality. The OP is a scum on here bullshitting who should be more concerned at the punishment that will be afforded to his club bythe EFL/FA
 
This may or may not be bull, it could well be partially true but the poster or their source has taken it and blown it way out of proportion. The way I see it, if the club could find a way out of the Kassam and its ridiculous cost, we'd probably take it, but to suggest Kassam has evicted us is where it falls away from truth for me. Kassam wants to knock down the stadium and build houses, we all know this, but by evicting us he's losing out on several million quid while we work on building a new stadium because he cannot knock down the Kassam until we have a permanent home as I understand it. If we HAVE found a way out of the contract and went back to Kassam, he'd be foolish to not negotiate a new short term deal because he'd be leaving himself with a stadium with no income. Kassam is a businessman, he values income over spitefulness towards OUFC.

For what it's worth, I made a random prediction we'd be signing McGuane months before we did based purely on his social media profile - so I'm basically in the ITK club now. My sauces (ketchup and HP brown sauce) have told me that the ACTUAL plan is that because the council won't let us build anywhere in Oxfordshire, the new plan is to build a stadium in the sky that will sit on a giant Helicarrier not unlike the ones seen in Marvel's Avengers films. Tiger has been building a fleet of high speed jets to carry fans to the stadium. Unfortunately, the funds are all spent so instead of building the stadium, we're nicking the three sides from the Kassam instead which is why he's so grumpy with us. There is some concern about what happens when someone smashes a ball over the fence end, but we'll be so high up that the ball should just about reach Swindon so we effectively have our own football related air strike.

It's that or what the OP said. Definitely one of those.
 
ZeroTheHero said:
So why would we not just play out the last four or five years at Grenoble Road and *then* groundshare, if this is the plan? Saying to Uncle Firoz that we don't intend to renew the lease at the end would not be grounds for him to terminate it now. If we moved immediately to groundshare with another club, it would cost a fortune - we would still have to pay to play there, the crowds would plummet, etc etc etc. And all this is being done when we have not started to build a new place or (so far as planning etc is concerned) not publicly got permission to do so or even started that process? It would be complete madness - and so far as brinkmanship with Kassam is concerned completely useless. He *wants* us to b****r off. The land is worth more to him with us gone. If we go, the sporting covenant on the stadium will be revoked and he will make a fortune.

So. It doesn't make sense at all, and it is obviously a total coincidence that it is posted on here mere minutes after we have got into the play offs, by a new poster. Who is then backed up by another new poster? When we have just pissed Portsmouth off (again) and our most despised rivals have been relegated?

I'm no Hercule Poirot, but...
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Was wondering the same
 
Robie said:
Perhaps we save a load of money doing it sooner or hope that FK comes back with a better offer when we have an alternative.
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Why? We still have 5 years on the lease, we have a wealthy board wealthy potential new owners and who knows there new stadium could be the Complete upgrade of the breeze block, no one knows what is going to happen but ground sharing will be the last thing on the clubs minds at the moment.
 
Robie said:
Perhaps we save a load of money doing it sooner or hope that FK comes back with a better offer when we have an alternative.
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We'd still have to pay FK if the current arrangement was in place, whether we played there or not. So nope. It would cost the present amount PLUS whatever we had to pay to play elsewhere.

Unless you think FK would shrug his shoulders and say 'Oh well, I'll let you off then'?!! Once we go elsewhere, he will have a pretty good case getting the sporting covenant rescinded and knocking the stadium down. Thus leaving it free for housing which would be a win for the council.

Let's just see if we play our first playoff leg at Grenoble Road.
 
QR said:
Although I don't want to give any credence to the rumour I can't see why Force Majure couldn't be used by the club seeing as the pandemic had taken away its only significant income stream.
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Force Majure would be a pretty grey area to withdraw from a ground licence in my view. Especially as things could be back to normal next season and there are what 5 years left on the licence.
If they were going to do this then a year ago would have been more appropriate and even then Kassam would be suing the club. I think it highly unlikely that the club would win leaving based on force mature.
 
Foley said:
Force Majure would be a pretty grey area to withdraw from a ground licence in my view. Especially as things could be back to normal next season and there are what 5 years left on the licence.
If they were going to do this then a year ago would have been more appropriate and even then Kassam would be suing the club. I think it highly unlikely that the club would win leaving based on force mature.
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You may be right, I'm no expert. As I said I don't want to give any credence to the rumour. If, there was any substance to this, big 'if' I know, then the timing of the use of the clause would be significant. Hypothetically it cound havehappened months ago. Big emphasis on the hypothetically there.
 
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Jolteon said:
Kassam wants to knock down the stadium and build houses, we all know this, but by evicting us he's losing out on several million quid while we work on building a new stadium because he cannot knock down the Kassam until we have a permanent home as I understand it. If we HAVE found a way out of the contract and went back to Kassam, he'd be foolish to not negotiate a new short term deal because he'd be leaving himself with a stadium with no income.
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All I would say is that there are a number of things that Kassam was meant to have done, or was meant to have not been allowed to do ever since he first showed up in the late nineties, and he has gone the other way without facing any repercussions more than once. The Priory was a sticking point on being allowed to build the stadium at all, and it’s now practically fallen down despite being a listed building that he is duty bound to protect. He even built a hotel next door to it a couple of years back, despite the local councils telling him that he wasn’t allowed until he sorted the Priory. He has done no such thing and they’ve just let him do what he likes - the hotel was granted an operating licence immediately and nothing was ever done. They always let him do what he likes. He’s not bothered about the income that he loses versus having it open as a pub, either.

I’m not giving any credence to the OP or their claims whatsoever, but in terms of the principle of your comment, if we were ever to choose to leave the stadium for any reason at all then FK would likely mount a legal challenge that we had given up our right to a protected home, and argue that the agreement is therefore void. He would have a really strong case, too. If he can say, “They have a protected home for as long as they want it, and they have chosen to walk away and go elsewhere despite being the ones who negotiated this deal to begin with, so what is this stadium for?” then no court or local authority would be likely to just shrug and leave an empty, rotting stadium standing there. Especially when they’re always desperate for new housing. It would be a fair argument in that scenario to say that we had decided we don’t want the stadium, and had given up those protected rights. He would have the bulldozers parked up and ready to go before the ruling had even been passed.

I made this argument three years ago, when I met with people at the club who said that they wanted to storm off and “play at a non-league ground for a couple of years to bring the fan base together”. I asked them which non-league ground they had identified that the EFL would be happy to allow us to play in without being expelled, and also where our new stadium was going to be built in the meantime which meant that we weren’t making ourselves homeless indefinitely, because the second that we leave Kassam will be making a case that we have given up our rights. We can’t have our cake and eat it. They didn’t have an answer, and three years later we’re still there.
 
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ConcernedOUFCfan said:
I wish to share some Information with you all.

I have a very reputable source within the club and I have been told some very Interesting news.

At present both my self and my source wish to remain nameless, but please hear me out.

As of today Oxford United football club no longer have a home stadium, as I understand it Oufc we’re able to cancel their contract due to acts of nature.

From what I’ve been told Oufc have submitted a lowball offer to remain at the stadium but it was turned down.

It is now the intention of the club to ground share with another local club, apparently Reading, Swindon & Wycome have been approached and it looks like Wycombe is the one they are going with.

As far as I know there is no real plans for Oufc to have they’re own ground, and this is simply a stroke to pull on over on Kassam.

Now if this is true it means Oufc will not be playing their play off game at the Kassam.

I for one, whilst I would absolutely love to see Oxford with they’re own stadium, feel this is a gamble too far, and with everything going on at the minute now is not the time to gamble with our club.

From what I’ve been told both sides are throwing they’re toys out of the pram and putting pride before the club and the fans.

I have also been told that some external parties are aware of the situation but have been told to keep quiet. Make of that what you will.

Yours. A life long OUFC fan.
This has also gone on twitter where it can't be taken down
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This statement is patently not true. By "acts of nature" the author can only mean Force Majeure. There is a Force Majeure clause in the current Licence which defines a Force Majeure event as :
"the occurrence after the date of this Agreement of any of the following: war civil war conflict civil commotion terrorist attack nuclear chemical or biological contamination or national emergency declared by Her Majesty's Government"
A Force Majeure Period is defined as " A period or periods during which the Stadium is incapable of use because of a Force Majeure Event"
The current pandemic is not a Force Majeure Event as defined and even if it were at no time has the Stadium been incapable of use.
Therefore, to suggest that the Club has been able to cancel the Licence due to acts of nature is fatuous nonsense.
 
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RyanioBirdio said:
I made this argument three years ago, when I met with people at the club who said that they wanted to storm off and “play at a non-league ground for a couple of years to bring the fan base together”. I asked them which non-league ground they had identified that the EFL would be happy to allow us to play in without being expelled, and also where our new stadium was going to be built in the meantime which meant that we weren’t making ourselves homeless indefinitely, because the second that we leave Kassam will be making a case that we have given up our rights. We can’t have our cake and eat it. They didn’t have an answer, and three years later we’re still there.
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This is why I think this whole rumour is false, even if we could get out of the licence why would we just to save a little bit on rent when we would still have to pay to groundshare and the loss of income from ticket sales would outlay the savings.
 
arthurturner said:
This statement is patently not true. By "acts of nature" the author can only mean Force Majeure. There is a Force Majeure clause in the current Licence which defines a Force Majeure event as :
"the occurrence after the date of this Agreement of any of the the following: war civil war conflict civil commotion terrorist attack nuclear chemical or biological contamination or national emergerncy declared by Her Majesty's Government"
A Force Majeure Period is defined as " A period or periods during which the Stadium is incapable of use because of a Force Majeure Event"
The current pandemic is not a Force Majeure Event as defined and even if it were at no time has the Stadium been incapable of use.
Therefore, to suggest that Club has been able to cancel the Licence due to acts of nature is fatuous nonsense.
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Accept what you say (as I said I don't buy the story) however you are wrong to say 'at no time has the Stadium been incapable of use' because I'm pretty sure I haven't been able to use it for it intended purpose as a supporter.
 
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