Council Sponsorship | Vital Football

Council Sponsorship

From a story in todays Guardian on Swansea

"...The upward trajectory was greatly boosted by the gift in 2005 of the Liberty Stadium, built with public money by Swansea council for £27m"

In an age of Foreign ownership and premier league obsession a local authority investing in its community club is surely to be commended.

Especially at the scale of Medway Council's poultry investment- is it any different in investing in the arts?
 
That's got me wondering if a similar project to that at Dartford may be on the cards. Stadium was built and paid for by the council but the club bought it back from them over a set period of time and is now theirs.
If the plans are scaled back to something more achievable and not too ambitious, it could be a starter
 
It would be nice for a local authority to invest in a new stadium but during a period of austerity and cuts to services I can't see it being politically acceptable.

Getting a council to supportive of plans might be realistic
 
I guess thats my point Mark. in a period of austerity should they cut all funding for the arts council etc as well then? surely not but the same should also apply to marginal investment in the community football team.

It could be part of a larger plan to encourage support, get the next generation supporting the community team rather than a london club. Football has an important place to play in building a community i would say, even for those who don't follow it- in a similar vain to the arts, but more real.

Doesn't have to be a new stadium but the modest support should be welcomed not attacked id say
 
There are council elections next year, and with Medway Council having already raised Council Tax and closing sure-start centres, paying outright to build a football stadium for a team that the majority of voters don't care about wouldn't just be a huge own goal, it would be suicide.

The cynical part of me says that the council sponsorship for this coming season is essentially GFC advertising the (Tory) Council to our throngs of supporters ahead of the election next year, in exchange that a new stadium would be supported by the council.
 
The council couldn’t buy a coffee machine without protests so I’d be interested to see the breakdown of these stadium deals. The reality is I doubt the council will suddenly get an x-million invoice for a stadium.

We’ve been in austerity for seemingly forever. If there was a risk of the local population being worse off then these stadium projects like at Swansea wouldn’t have gone ahead, even if they were in slightly better times. Particularly somewhere like Swansea.
 
Besides funding the build, it seems to me that there are two issues that affect the ability to build a new stadium after identifying a site:
1. Acquiring the land
2. Obtaining planning permission

Trying to buy the necessary amount of private land where planning permission has already been granted is likely to be excessively expensive as the owner holds the aces and would want top dollar.

Could the Council actually support the club by either selling at a fair price or long term leasing some of the land that it presently owns?

Regarding planning permission, does anyone think that the council would be supported if it granted permission for a stadium at a site where it would normally turn down other applications? I seem to remember that the Brighton ground was built in the quiet area of Falmer against the wishes of local residents because the council supported it and Prescott relented.

It would not directly cost the council taxpayer to allow the above concessions so I wonder if the sponsorship tie up may relate to something similar.
 
octopus said:
I guess thats my point Mark. in a period of austerity should they cut all funding for the arts council etc as well then? surely not but the same should also apply to marginal investment in the community football team.

It could be part of a larger plan to encourage support, get the next generation supporting the community team rather than a london club. Football has an important place to play in building a community i would say, even for those who don't follow it- in a similar vain to the arts, but more real.

Doesn't have to be a new stadium but the modest support should be welcomed not attacked id say
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I tend to agree and would rather see the council support the local sporting team than fund fireworks and festivals. I guess the question is what the ROI on those festivals. If it costs (and I am making these figures up) 250K to put on the Dickens festival but it adds 300K to the local economy through visitors then how would that compare to what Gills add to the local economy. At Priestfield the Cricketers and the the gordon road chippy do very well out of having a local team at home but not sure the wider economy benefits much. The local schools / temples that rent their car parks do well as well.

Its a balance I guess. Still we now know the details of the sponsorship and its really very little in cash value to gills. Hopefully the goodwill generated will be paid back in the future.

I can't ever see the council financially backing a stadium though. Its a shame as its is not uncommon in Europe

I believe Le Havre council funded this beauty

https://footballtripper.com/stade-oceane-le-havre-france/


Local council in Cornwall are also supporting financially according to this

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...l-approve-3m-funding-government-a8309001.html
 
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