Newham’s 100,000 ticket giveaway begins

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.”