[del[/delProbably not comparing like with like but YP is reporting that Hull Council, having spent £47 MILLION on KC Stadium, have recd a total of just £48 THOUSAND in lease payments over 10 YEARS from the tenants. One way of keeping overheads down for Hull FC and Hull City. We in the meantime are scratching around trying to find someone to persuade RFL to allow us to continue to lease our ground which simply eats up cash. Of course I am jealous.[del[/del

I assume they meant profit from the stadium mgt co. !!!!!!!!!!! FC pay more than 48k a year in rent !

IIRC the stadium was built using 'windfall monies' from the privatisation sale of Kingston Communications. The fans of FC were very fortunate to get a stadium like that in that way. Good luck to them... and I'm very jealous too

Does anyone know what the annual lease payments are for the Bulls to use Odsal?

Well then you are wrong. The article states that in total, the council has received just £47,846 in lease payments since the stadium opened in 2002 against which it has paid close to £600,000 to rent office space. In its own stadium.

If the statement that in total, the council has received just £47,846 in lease payments since the stadium opened in 2002 is wrong then you need to provide the evidence. Otherwise I suggest the published figures of the YP are more likely to be accurate than the unsubstantiated musings of an internet troll.

No You are wrong FA.

The KC is run by the Stadium Management Company owned by the Allam's (Hull City Owner). Hull FC & Hull City pay rent to the SMC who in turn pay a pittance of % profits to Hull City Council which amounts to the £47k mentioned since the stadium opened.

The community stadium was funded by the sale of Kingston Communications as a previous poster mentioned.

No doubt though that we have a great stadium to play in, but the terms of the lease are not that great (we also have to pay a percentage of gate receipts to the SMC for attendences over a certain level - around 8,000 IIRC).

Hope all goes well for the Bulls, I for one want to see you remain in SL

Did'nt Bulls get a 125 year lease given from the council free, plus an umpteen £million lump sum at the same time?

Nope, I know nothing about Hull's arrangements, I was (clearly) stating that I have no reason to disbelieve the facts set out by the YP.


Cheers! It's not looking good, but you never quite know.

Yes, but it was a 1,000 year lease, and the figure was billions rather than millions. All season ticket holders also got a gold Rolls-Royce each, and a Caribbean island.

More or less. It was 150 years and about £10 - £12 million, though I'm not certain of the exact figure.

The cash was in lieu of the fact that the Bulls took on the (somewhat expensive) responsibility of upkeep, which was, up to that point, on the landlord - or Bradford Met to use its proper name. We (with ratepayer's hat on) often complain about the council not being very astute but that was a stonker of a deal for them and us (ratepayer's hat), but the club made a bad decision, imo, with consequences which stretch down to today.

To be fair there were any number of reasons why we are where we are and I suspect that when the deal was done the club never really expected to be still using what is basically the old stadium (with its great costs) but various financial collapses in the money markets and, on one occasion, the government refusing permission stymied every attempt to rebuild. Coulda, shoulda, woulda but things always seemed to get in the way.

The settlement was less than half that, some of which was anyway in the form of ground improvements like the floodlights. It was the net present value of the sums the council was contractually bound to pay to or on behalf of the Bulls till 2019. All it therefore was was a discounted sum now in place of a series of sums over the following 17 years. No net cost or gain to anyone, although trying to get some folk to appreciate that was a Sisyphean task well beyond the likes of me.

Except the council were probably the real winners, as you observe, because they rid themselves of an ongoing liability of indeterminate but escalating amount.

Indeed they were, and also the club was forever doomed to being on the wrong end of uninformed, malicious bull such as: