A former Athletics Chief has called for West Ham to have more control over the London Stadium calling the Hammers a valuable asset to the legacy of the former Olympic Stadium.
Ed Warner is the former chair of UK Athletics and current vice-chair of World Para Athletics wrote an article for City.AM
He says UK Athletics must make up its mind over London Stadium continued use.
He says clearly there a deal to be done with the Legacy Company over the future running of the London Stadium
He suggests extending the lease with West Ham taking over management for 52 weeks of the year enjoying the profits from summer gigs and other sports coming up with a new rental figure that carries with it greater responsibility for repair and maintenance.
When he handed over the chair of UK Athletics in 2017, he advised its new leaders to decide urgently whether they wanted to continue to use the London Stadium and, if they did, to go all in against the constant pressure to give it up. If not, they should do an early deal with the Mayor to relinquish UKA’s 50-year rent-free sub-lease and accept either a very chunky sum of cash to support the sport, or a fully redeveloped athletics venue at Crystal Palace.
Warner says if it was still up to him, he would be arguing for retro-fitting an automated seat moving system. That would pay back in only a few years, wouldn’t cramp West Ham, and would maximise the opportunities for summer revenues for whoever controls the London Stadium outside the football season.
There is no reason why that shouldn’t be in the mix in any three-way negotiations between the Legacy Company, West Ham and UKA. And athletics would still have its iconic Olympic home.
I like the idea of redeveloping Crystal Palace. They could build a stadium that befits the quantity of athletics fans that attend. WH have added seats a fair few number of times but without the running track getting fans closer to the pitch would create a much better atmosphere and who knows what the capacity could be? More than ManU ? The more WH profit the more they’d contribute to the cost.