April 11 2006

Selhurst Park

Ron Noades has told Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan to forget about buying Selhurst Park.

Former Palace supremo Noades owns the freehold to the stadium and is adamant he won’t sell because he is fed up with Jordan’s failure to discuss a deal.

The pair have been at loggerheads for several years after Jordan’s initial attempts to strike a deal sparked a bitter war of words.

Palace's current lease for Selhurst Park expires in four years but Noades has ruled out any chance of negotiations being re-opened.

He said: "I'm not going to meet with Simon Jordan. Palace have never owned their stadium since the early 1980s, so why do they need to own it now?

"I keep reading in the papers he wants to buy the ground but he’s not been in touch with me.

"So we're not doing business like that and I don’t deal with it anyway. I’ve got no interest in selling to Simon at all.

"I've introduced Simon to one of my professional people that would deal with it. He’s not been in touch."

Jordan had already been scouring south London in an increasingly desperate bid to find a site for a new ground and is now likely to step up that search.

But Noades believes he should redevelop Selhurst Park, otherwise Palace will never be able to establish themselves in the Premiership.

He added: "When I was chairman, we had a 99-year lease. We built two stands while paying rent. Why shouldn't Palace carry on doing that? I did it when I was here. You’ve got to keep investing in the stadium.

"If you don't invest in the stadium, you'll never get the money and the revenue game by game to support a side in the Premier League. You might get in the Premier League, but you won't stay there.

"You can't go on saying 'we're not going to build a Main Stand because we don't own the freehold.' I built two stands and we didn't have the freehold.

"If Palace want a new lease, they can have a new lease. They've not even asked for one. And they’ve not even made an approach to buy the freehold either, other than when I offered to sell it when Simon took over the club ages ago and they withdrew from the deal."