In my view he has taken the opinion that the council set up the SMC in the first place as they were scared to death of being left with a massive drain on council funds. He knows they have know appetite to take it back, especially if it is perceived to be loss making. Imagine the uproar if HCC have to cut budgets to front line services to prop up a loss making stadium for two sports teams to play in. To say the current losses at the SMC have been engineered is an understatement.

They should take it back - say to him that he shouldnt have to absorb the costs. Then they can get sponsorship for the Arena at a decent rate to attract sponsors, and rent out office space for the unused units. Put various events on at the stadium etc to generate income. Easy

Crafty from Allam

Use a relatively minor issue in terms of pictures around the place, get you lot booting off so all the media looks into it then come out with this statement citing bigger issues

Very crafty

Yeah i get that the council wouldn't want it but this must be the only smc is the country thats losing money.
But i'd guess that an independently ran smc would make a profit.

I'd love to see what this £3.5m was spent on in the stadium.

Its quite an interesting release.

The Council should see that the SMC is in fact keeping the burden of cost for them whilst maintaining their asset to the gold standard required.
Thats not something the Allams really want to do.

What is the SMC mortgaged to the tune of £3.5m for? It can't be secured against the stadium or other facilities as they don't own them. Is the £3.5m mortgage Hull City's against the user agreement? If so, there is confusion here between the two companies. OR has the SMC mortgaged future income from the sponsorship deal with KC - which seems more feasible.

Our user agreement sees us getting the facility at less than the SMC want, but they cannot do anything about that.

In the meantime, we have to ensure we do nothing that harms our club and continues to fend off the SMC.

Possibly. But if you want to build wider support, I'm not sure such open hostility to the council (or media) is politic. Anger motivates your base, diplomacy wins over the 'don't knows'.

This. If the only bone of contention is the removal of JW's memorabilia, let us (the fans) pay it as a gift to the great man. As Mick Cranes Sidestep says, the Allams are subsidising us and will obviously not want this to continue, but can do nothing about it. As the old saying goes "softly, softly catchee monkey".

I feel AP is keeping quiet as he will be very familiar with the SMC and its finances and may be subject to a personal silencing order following leaving their employ.

Too many smokescreens and mirrors.

I will watch this play out and see what happens.

Since the HDM won't press our case (obviously they need to be impartial), why don't we get in touch with the rugby press to push our case? Do a bit of investigating or just raise awareness.

I'm pretty sure that if League Weekly or League Express ran a story and included a free Johnny Whitely card cut-out mask, they'd see huge sales increases throughout Hull/East Yorkshire! Win for them (more sales), win for us (more awareness via rugby press and masks to use in protest!).

given that our own club, nor the Council, appear to have any appetite for this, we may as well leave it here, before any one of us individuals ends up in trouble.

Speak for yaself bud

A rugby paper honouring a rugby legend isn't exactly going to cause trouble, is it?

As long as they aren't physically telling people what to do with the mask, no-one can get into trouble!

Time for a Lloyd style protest?

Maybe all the tickes for his squash thing should be bought by us, smuggle some mini rugby balls in and Whitley masks...........

FC have tried to renegotiate the temrs we pay a few times and to help with tickets promos etc and have been told to 'do one' by the SMC, whe were more than happy because to the money they were raking in when our crowds were up

Now theyre around 2k or so down on what we was getting, thats a lot of money the SMC are missing and they want to change it

A total boycott of sales in and around the ground should be our first line of protest as as already been mooted. The Allams through the SMC own the catering franchise so start to hit them there.