London Stadium is an Athletics problem
The report lays bare poor decision after poor decision made by politicians in both parties as well a string of inept civil servants on the Olympics and quango gravy train. Retaining Athletics at the stadium was a vanity project which would never pay its own way.
The report confirms for the first time that the London Stadium needed a Premier League football club to avoid becoming a white elephant. The government quango had an option to build a stadium capable of supporting a Premier League football before the London Summer Olympics but rejected it on cost and time grounds.
On the first bid process in 2009, the government department had another chance to lease West Ham and Newham the stadium for 150 years with the costs and risks on the football club’s side but were panicked into abandoning the process after judicial reviews by Spurs and Leyton Orient together with an European state aid complaint by Steve Lawrence. Again it was a missed opportunity.
By the time of the second bid, it was a buyers market and West Ham got a great deal. So what! Should we be ashamed that the board negotiated a deal which was best for West Ham and their fans?
Take Athletics out of the equation and the London Stadium problems are resolved overnight. Move them to Birmingham to a purpose-built stadium and the job is done. It is the only solution that makes sense once the politicians have stopped their point scoring games.
Once that is sorted allow West Ham to operate and run the stadium including concerts, catering, sponsorship and naming rights sharing profits with the government stadium owners. Long term it is the only sensible solution to make a bad situation good and return some money to the taxpayer.