West Ham’s summer of excitement and high optimism is still being forced to live in the long shadow of an October court case created by London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan.
The club are heading into a legal battle over what they believe is their right to increase the stadium’s capacity to 62,500 from the current 57,000.
It’s a big issue for the club who need a full stadium rather than empty spaces around the stadium as excitement grows over the club’s future under manager Manuel Pellegrini.
The 5,500 empty seats combined to an average 15 per cent ‘no-shows’ by season ticket holders can provide a bleak atmosphere inside the stadium with many empty seats clearly visible around the stadium.
By helping to solve that, the Mayor can do himself and the Hammers a big turn but currently he chooses not to preferring instead to attract easy political advantages by supporting the Trump visit protests by allowing ‘baby’ balloons to depict the Republican president.
Meanwhile, the Irons are being forced into legal proceedings to gain what they believe are their rights under the terms of their contract when Khan – if he chose – could sort the whole thing to everybody’s satisfaction. But no movement from him at all.
The new arrivals and big spending this summer should mean that everything in the Hammers garden is lovely right now but the Mayor of London’s ongoing silent war with the club means we cannot move on and put up the ‘house full signs’ until hopefully after a successful court hearing in October.
And even should we win we then have to get the safety licence from Newham council to cover the new capacity which may not be easy given the Burnley crowd incursions.
All of this can and should be avoided by Khan and his team sitting down and working out a solution with the Irons rather than possibly losing in court at a heavy cost to the taxpayer – a charge constantly and unfairly levelled at the club’s deal as anchor tenants.
Do we really expect action that quickly from a politician.Expect he’s admiring Donald Trump and his speeches.He’s a dick as well.
I am no fan of Sadiq Khan, I think he is a lame duck mayor who appears to have it out for our club, but “The club are heading into a legal battle over what they believe is their right to increase the stadium’s capacity to 62,500 from the current 57,000.” I’m not sure we can play that card when, as we keep saying, we only rent the stadium for 20+ days a season. That would be like me saying I have the right to put an extension on my rented house, wouldn’t it?
Isn’t it more like the landlord charging us again for the right to use the spare bedroom?
put it another way if the extension is already there why cant we use it if we are paying the rent for it
Good point
To be fair we probably well down on his list on things he needs to do. knife crime etc
Not that he seems capable of that or anything else
Mans an idiot
if it was an issue regarding Muslims I’m sure Khan would be all over it, the man is a disgrace to London
I’m confused. If ‘5,500 empty seats combined to an average 15 per cent ‘no-shows’ by season ticket holders can provide a bleak atmosphere’, how will adding more empty seats help?
Too many £99 and concession seats were sold which people only use for big games.
Who is to blame for that the club, probably, or maybe the fans that dont use them?
Khan is a loser that probably can’t even tie his own shoe laces, there are two sides to every story but if Khan wanted more money he should be sitting around a table and negotiating, I suspect he has so little faith in his own negotiating skills he is frightened of making just as big a mess of it as his predecessors so trying to pass the negotiating buck onto someone outside of his office by deferring responsibility to the court.
Kahn is a socialist **** with no substance dont waste your ink on him
Well I’m a socialst **** as well 🙂 but if my ink and that of others helps to turn public opinion against him on this – which I hope it does – I think I’ll keep writing.
I called him a door handel hugh the blanked out word looks much worse
LOL – top man