Villa Park Redevelopment

[Goldenballs]

But didn't Heck say we didn't need a bigger ground?

[Rudy Can't Fail]

There's plenty of regeneration funds available to support this type of project from the EU.

[Chris Harte]

There's plenty of regeneration funds available to support this type of project from the EU.

Shame we left the EU then.

[Chris Harte]

But didn't Heck say we didn't need a bigger ground?

There is that.

Do you believe him?

[Skerra]

Something doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t know what but, sure we’ll find out in due course.
At least we can put the bullshit about a 30,000 waiting list behind us. If they said it was a couple of thousand, I’d be more inclined to believe it.

[jon collett]

30000 may be a high number but I bet if they put 200 extra season tickets on sale to cover these supposedly empty seats they would sell them all immediately.

[Percy McCarthy]

That's how much Comcast have in Atairos isn't it?

Ah, gotcha.From what I gather, Atairos is a fund set up by the ex-CEO of Comcast, with $4bn of Comcast money and $40m of his. As an admitted layman, I don’t think Atairos’s total fund is at our disposal, just like the noses haven’t got access to the money under management by Knighthead. The exciting thing for us is that Atairos are almost wholly owned by Comcast, and that’s a whole different ball game IMO.

[VILLA MOLE]

But didn't Heck say we didn't need a bigger ground?

Was it need more seats too fast with the current transport infrastructure or something?

[London Villan]

We can't sell enough premium seats is the issue, I'm sure of it. Demand for the TV and HS isn't great.

[chrisw1]

But didn't Heck say we didn't need a bigger ground?

There is that.

Do you believe him?

I believe that he believes it.

[chrisw1]

30000 may be a high number but I bet if they put 200 extra season tickets on sale to cover these supposedly empty seats they would sell them all immediately.

There's a bit of double counting going on there though Jon.  The assumption would probably be that the 200 who would immediately snap up the ST's are probably going to most games anyway.

[chrisw1]

We can't sell enough premium seats is the issue, I'm sure of it. Demand for the TV and HS isn't great.

I agree.

[chrisw1]

To me cancelling the North Stand replacement makes sense.

If the owners are as ambitious as they seem and want to compete at the highest level, then a 60k stadium with commensurate GA+ (or whatever term they use) is an absolute necessity.

I think they value the heritage and history of Villa and Villa Park being a key asset.

The best option on moving forward as surely got to be buying up the 3 streets of housing between Witton Lane and the railway.

The council would likely be supportive - they need every bit of help in regeneration given the financial mess they’re in.

Perhaps this is the time to strike the right kind of deal with them - even including compulsory purchasing.

This is pure fantasy.  It's been cancelled because they don't think we need a bigger ground right now, not because they are planning some huge CPO purchase of 100's of houses.

[Malandro]

If they don’t trust the waiting list data - how about seeing if people will put money down?

I certainly would. I’m not sure how fair that would be, but it would be a way of judging it.

[chrisw1]

If they don’t trust the waiting list data - how about seeing if people will put money down?

I certainly would. I’m not sure how fair that would be, but it would be a way of judging it.

I think they'd probably sell another 4-5k season tickets quite comfortably - they must know this.  But many will already be match-going fans, so all it really does is take 4-5k of floating demand out of the equation.  Personally I think with success the fans would follow and cancelling the development is short-sighted.  But I think as London Villan mentions, the stand was never really about an extra 7,000 seats at £45 a match.