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Coe insists athletics should stay at loss making stadium

Seb Coe insists athletics needs to stay at London Stadium amid talks UK Athletics (UKA) could relocate its major events to Birmingham after the commonwealth games.

There will be no top-flight athletics at the former Olympic Stadium this summer for the third year running with doubts it will ever return.

Discussions are in the early stages between the stadium owners E20 and UKA about a multi-million-pound pay off to bring a premature end to the 50-year deal to host athletics at the venue.

World Athletics boss Coe, who was also the mastermind behind London 2012, said: “We want to keep a world-class track-and-field facility in London. I want London to remain a stopping point for international athletics.”

It could be argued that Lord Coe together with Boris Johnson, Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone were the architects of decisions that meant the Stadium cost £752 million to build twice and led to annual losses of around £30m per year since the Olympics finished. The stadium could end up costing the taxpayer a billion pounds unless they can break the pattern of losses.
It costs around £4m per year to convert the stadium for athletics and the novelty has certainly worn off with attendances dropping to around 45,000 over two days the last time it was staged at the London Stadium.
 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

6 comments on “Coe insists athletics should stay at loss making stadium

  1. Perhaps Lord Coe might want to cough up the cash to keep athletics at the stadium instead of us hard pressed tax payers!

  2. Lord Coe needs to talk to UKA about eventing athletics at the stadium. Nobody is stopping them using the stadium!!!

  3. We all know Coe was part of consortium trying to buy Chelsea football club. He has bias and a vested interest in stopping West Ham from growing as a club.

  4. Typical, nose in the air or up his…. Totally oblivious to the situation that currently surrounds the athletics situation. He sees it as part of his legacy regardless of the cost to hard pressed tax payers. It’s his vanity project. How do we end up with people like this in charge of these projects.

  5. He’s not a mastermind he is a numpty if he wasn’t such a fool he would have agreed to proposals to design a stadium that could easily be converted from athletics to football mode but his own arrogance and elitist personality wouldn’t entertain the idea. He is one of the dimmest egomaniacs anyone is like to encounter much like his conservative chums hasn’t got the humility to let go of his mistakes. Instead wants to force everyone to comply to his demands.

  6. The idea of having the athletics stadium in SE London at the National Sports Centre would be a better alternative. Access has improved a lot since 2012 what with the Overground. Gatwick isn’t far away either for the big occasions as is the M25.

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