There appears to be some confusion how the capacity increase to 60,000 will be achieved at the London Stadium after an out of court settlement on Monday with the landlord E20.

The London Stadium already has 66,000 seats in place of which at least 60,000 are uncovered so, in reality, those seats spread around the stadium can be made available almost immediately without any modification.  There will be no structural changes to the stadium and no seats will be bought closer to the pitch I heard one supporter suggesting yesterday.

The Newham led London Stadium Safety Advisory Group (LS-SAG) will need to approve a new safety certificate with an amended value of 60,000. The application form must come from stadium operators London Stadium 185 who are responsible for safety, presumably they will now receive the nod from E20 to action that. The LS-SAG meets around once per month so there should be time for the relevant paperwork to be filed in time.

The LS-SAG membership includes Newham, LLDC/E20, West Ham, Met Police, TFL, SGSA, British Transport Police, London Underground, South Eastern Railway, Network Rail, St Johns Ambulance and Westfield all of which can provide input whether a safety certificate with increased capacity should be granted or not or what concerns that have. Ultimately the decision is for the Licensing authority to make which in this case is Newham Council.

Assuming the certificate is granted without conditions or restrictions it will then be up to West Ham to decide how to sell these extra 3,000 existing seats. Will they offer partial season tickets to those on the season ticket waiting list or will they put the tickets on general sale for the remainder of the season?