The ongoing dispute between West Ham United and UK Athletics appears pretty clear cut. West Ham United, leaseholders at London Stadium, feel they have the legal right to stick two fingers up at UK Athletics who want to bid for the World Athletics Championships in September 2029 and have West Ham vacate the London Stadium for three weeks.
Apparently it would weaken the ‘London’ bid for the World Championships to move it to the summer.
So September is their preferred timing – at the end of the athletics season – but that would mean the Hammers would have to move out and the stadium revert to its ‘athletics’ configuration mid-football season.
The West Ham board feel they have every right to refuse.
And I’m sure they’re within their legal rights.
World record 800m holder Keely Hodgkinson even poked fun at West Ham – as the Guardian gleefully reported:
“Hodgkinson, who won the World Indoor Championship 800m on Sunday, made her feeling’s clear on Tuesday when she responded to a story on X saying “London’s bid for the 2029 World Athletics Championships is in jeopardy”.
“The GB team will bring back more medals to that stadium than West Ham have seen in their entire history,” she wrote, before adding hand over the mouth, laughing and heart emojis.”
Three weeks in September in 2029 could actually mean just one home game being postponed: With so many clubs in London it is hardly a drawback to start the season with three away fixtures: It has happened before and everything, of course, evens itself out later in the season.
There is a wider issue here in that the board seem quite happy-indeed it almost seems their default setting– to fall out with everybody over everything. Be it naming rights, never ending issues with the owners and payments, the ongoing dispute with tens of thousands of disillusioned, disgruntled supporters – the tenancy at London Stadium seems to have been filled with disputes and court cases as the acerbic owners manage to fall out with just about everyone.
West Ham’s board seem able to fall out with anyone
The difference between having the legal right and ‘the right thing to do‘ is enormous. West Ham’s deal at London Stadium is so preposterously good for the club that it would surely do no harm to consider being a little more accommodating: It just seems that this current board don’t have it in them to consider anything but their own self centred little board room view on life.
Which can be mighty tiresome as a lifelong supporter. Just once, perhaps, the current owners could make us as fans proud by looking at ‘the greater good’. Not these owners, not this football club. A shame.
Whu could move to Hackney Marshes for a month.
Just a thought.
Martin couldn’t more on this. The 🤡 really is dragging the name of the club through the mud on this one. As you say at worst it would probably be one game which makes little difference to the club or team.
Unfortunately the small mindedness of the Board will just lead club being hated by the general public. As for WHUFC being the main money maker, it isn’t. The stadium owners make a loss on every game played and the brutal truth is it would be less expensive to the taxpayer if it was vacant.
‘ main money bringer to the stadium?’ I think you will find it costs the taxpayer £100k plus every time West Ham play a game at LS!
The trouble here is that Athetics as a spectacle seldom attracts the numbers to fill major stadiums, and therefore makes UKA owning one unviable. I understand they pay no contribution (or a peppercorn amount at most) towards the running of the London Stadium. The Alexander stadium in Birmingham which was refurbished a short while ago at no small expense to the public is the UKs largest purpose built Athletics venue, holding less than 20,000 and is owned by the Birmingham Authority.
Lord Snooty, whilst pushing his political agenda, wanted a ‘legacy’ for UKA – unfortunately he left a very unhealthy one for the London taxpayer.
I see no ‘moral dilemma’ in refusing to accede to UKA’s desires, as others have said, without the tenancy of WHUFC the place would cease to be, although I accept that many would be happy with the latter…
We should stand firm. COYI
they were happy to let man city take over the stadium after the commonwealth games, but that burke Coe wasn’t involved and it was designed to be transformed into a football stadium. But football bailed out Athletics to make it viable.
west ham took over their last project, but this time athletics built a stadium unfit for football. without west ham it would have gone the same way as other Olympic stadiums around the world and gradually wasted away.
Athletics should get a reality check and do something to help everyone for a change,
maybe it could cough up and pay for the reconfiguration of the stadium after the games, maybe west ham would agree to September then and work with them.
Seems to me some people are still clinging to this ludicrous belief that Upton Park was all and the London Stadium nothing. Upton Park was a hole and I for one was very grateful when it died. Keep hearing “the Board are this”, “the Board are that”, the answer is plain and simple build us a better mousetrap. Find us a Board willing to buy the club and do what you ask of a Board. Truth is you won’t find anyone willing to do it, these days. So let’s back the Hammers and stop winging about the ground and the Board.
Double the crowd and a decent pitch, not one that a park would be ashamed of. Let’s be grateful.
World Athletics is deluding itself if they think people will want to sit in the cold of September watching that boring rubbish. Choose the summer and grow up.
For what it is worth, it seems more than strange to me that WHU should stand in the way of London and the UK hosting a World athletics event. Should be a source of pride & at least of pleasure.
From a purely selfish point of view, would it not represent a good time to talk about the future of the stadium, or with preparations (major works?) perhaps necessary to host a large athletics event, is it not the right time to consider whether changes can be included for after the event when stadium returns to football?
It’s almost certain that the ground will not be able to be closed mid season. If athletics have a problem then let them come up with the money to fund a permanent stadium of their own, ah nobody is interested in athletics so they cant….
Losers can’t be choosers.
It seems to me that you have said what any fair minder person would say in the circumstances, Martin. As for the West Ham board, particularly BS, they seem intent on making everybody hate them. Pantomine villains, much?
West Ham are the primary tenants of the stadium. Without WHU, the stadium would be a white elephant going to waste. The World Athletics would not even be able to bid for the event without the stadium. As a result, UK athletics should be more accommodating to WHU to fulfil their requirements. I stand by our chair people in adopting a stubborn approach to an organisation who pay nothing to disrupt the main money bringer to the stadium.