The London Borough of Newham has started it’s giveaway of up to 100,000 free tickets to West Ham games at the London Stadium starting with this Thursday’s evening game against Astra Giurgiu in the Europa League play off second leg. Newham borough residents who have previously registered an interest in watching West Ham were emailed this week and invited to apply online for a random ballot.
The free ticket give away is a contractual obligation for West Ham within the 99 year Stadium concessionaire agreement but previously it was claimed the tickets would be given out as a reward to upstanding members of the Newham community and distributed using criteria.
A Newham Council spokesperson replying to ClaretandHugh in late 2015 said: “The original stadium deal includes 100,000 free tickets for stadium matches every year from 2016. The intention is the tickets are used to reward residents for being active and resilient members of the community. Lead councillors for each of our community neighbourhoods will have a role in managing these rewards, and settling the criteria for distributing tickets to their residents who are making a contribution to their community. Anyone who is given a ticket will be made aware that it is non transferable. We will monitor the use of the tickets to ensure the individuals nominated to receive tickets are attending.”
57k capacity – 52k Season Ticket holders – you do the maths!
assuming ST just get first dibs on EL but probably not all will take them up? They are going to have to pick and choose these freebie games carefully
The only problem is the seats are covered in a tarpaulin ??
The ones right at the back Johnboy? Not sure but aren’t they the seats that take us from 60-66k if allowed?
I’m guessing that these free tickets will come out of the current 57k capacity?