Last week London Stadium owners E20 revealed further losses bringing their accumulated losses to £257m.
In their financial accounts published at Companies house they tried to blame their losses on hosting West Ham football games and moving the seats backwards and forwards for Athletics but the reasons are much deeper than that.
It is very convenient of them to blame West Ham for their losses but in reality, they only have themselves to blame.
E20 Stadium owned by the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) has consistently failed to get a handle on their operating costs despite numerous changes of civil servants running it.
They outsource everything, have no commercial integrity and are extremely inefficient.
They have spend millions on external consultants which have failed to make any significant dent on their increasing losses and many of their commercial deals have been poorly sourced. Their major single issue remains they have failed to sell the very valuable Naming Rights for the stadium despite paying consultants many hundreds of thousands on advice on how to do such that. They have failed on pretty much every level.
The only sensible action to save more of Taxpayers money is to approach West Ham to take over the operation and day to day running of the London Stadium to leverage their decades of experience of running football stadia and properly managing costs.
How much longer can this go on for the taxpayers have not got many more millions to chuck down the drain on this white static building that is never going to be a football ground it’s a white elephant exactly like the O2 was
They would have to give it to West Ham because the three brass monkeys will not buy it
They could sell for houses to be built on it if you want to live in the middle of nowhere
They will never make money from it
Plus what is the mayor doing about it nothing I presume which is no surprise
Hmnn… very strong article and of course positioned from one-side’s perspective.
Something needs to give, but from a taxpayers point of view, I’d rather Sullivan didn’t get his grubby little hands on managing govt funds.
From a West Ham supporter point of view, I don’t think it’s in the interest of the club (Meaning us all not just G&S) to take over managing this huge loss unless we own it.
But even if it was given to us what could we do with it to make it better outside of levelling it and starting again? Sure you can square off the ends but the fact remains that it simply wasn’t designed for football; too wide, too shallow a rake, too far from the pitch, the lower tiers will always be temporary and so on. It’s hard to see what you can do about this, and therefore hard to see how it will ever be a fit for purpose football stadium.
Unless something extraordinary happens we’re stuck with the thing forever. That is the GSB legacy.
I totally agree that the time is now right for the West Ham board to take over full control of the London Stadium. Great opportunity for Karen Brady to put her negotiating skills to good use and find a way to make it our own stadium. But, in doing so, West Ham United must then buy out the 25 year contract the present stadium owners have with British Athletics. Once the London Stadium becomes the property of West Ham United, the club cant do anything with it while its still being used for athletics. The time is right and the time is now.
Thanks for the article, Sean.
I believe the renovation of Alexander Stadium for Birmingham 2022 will see its capacity raise to 40,000 with 18,000 permanent seats. That would seem like the ideal time for British Athletics to move there permanently. It’ll be much better suited to future athletics events, and is in the middle of the country making it more accessible to the population.
Once that happens, I can see them being willing to cancel the contract (on favourable terms), thus removing the need for the LS to host athletics moving forward. That would make it a more attractive commercial opportunity, I would imagine.
This hand off will help people ‘save face’ and reduce the Olympics legacy outcry.
In the fullness of time, under West Ham ownership, I can see the stadium being redeveloped much like WHL has been. It’s the land that really has the value, not so much the building itself…