Opening and Recent History
The stadium is officially owned by one of Kassam's Firoka Group companies, and hosted its first football match on 4 August 2001. The game was a friendly match against Crystal Palace, which Oxford won on penalties following a 1-1 draw, and Paul Powell scored the club's first goal at the ground. The first competitive match at the ground took place one week later, on 11 August, against Rochdale, in the Football League Third Division (now Football League Two). United lost this match 2-1 in front of a crowd of 7,842 people; Jamie Brooks scored for Oxford. Since then, the ground has hosted rugby union games, as well as an under-17 International football tournament in 2002.
In March 2006, the Oxford United Supporters' Trust unofficially renamed the ground "The United Stadium". They urged everyone to use this name, which they claimed signified the crisis at the club, with the Chairman failing to choose the right option to take the club forward, and which also symbolised the unity of the fans. Despite the unofficial renaming of the stadium, it seems most fans and local press still refer to the home ground as the Kassam Stadium.
On 25 October 2007, it was reported by BBC South News during a lunchtime bulletin that Oxford United Football Club had submitted a bid to the former club owner Firoz Kassam to buy the Kassam Stadium on the morning of the 25th. It is understood that the asking price of £13m had been met, although this story was only run once during the lunchtime bulletin, and there has been no official statement from the club.
At the 2008 Annual General Meeting, club chairman Nick Merry said "The price is agreed for the stadium at £13 million. That is not negotiable but the valuation of the stadium is some way short of that so funding that deficit needs to make commercial sense. We are not prepared to put the future of Oxford United at risk. Any deal has to make sense for both the short term and long term future of this club."
On 16 May 2012, rugby union club London Welsh applied to move their home ground to the Kassam Stadium following promotion from the RFU Championship, and their opening Premiership fixture was played there on 2 September 2012.
Read more about this topic: Kassam Stadium
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