The London Stadium has cost over £1.2 billion since its creation for the London Olympics in 2012.
The initial build cost of the Stadium in the 2005 bid was expected to be £280m, but the final cost was £486m.
Post Olympics, the £272m transformation was included in accounts for the newly created E20 Stadium Group, which was incorporated in 2014.
Operating losses for that legal entity over the last ten years, 2014 to 2024, are running at £710m and counting.
In March this year, the E20 Stadium group was transferred from the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) to GLA Holdings Limited.
The London Mayor responsible for Stadium situation
The GLA property group inherited 635 hectares of land in April 2012 with a value at that time of £365m. All of the land inherited has now either been developed, is in the course of development, is contractually committed for development or is currently being marketed for development. The land includes the Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks.
GLA Holdings Limited is 100% owned by the Greater London Authority, for which London Mayor Sadiq Khan is responsible.
It remains to be seen what transparency the London Stadium has under its new ownership, but the taxpayers’ costs will continue to rise with the stadium unable to break even or become financially sustainable.
The arrogance and stupidity of the establishment that couldn’t see what was clearly needed is utterly mind boggling, if David Sullivan buys it and builds a purpose built Football stadium, will you still want him out?
What on earth happens to the spiralling debt if the unthinkable happens and we get relegated from the Premier League?
Parachute payment would only last so long.. is bankruptcy just around the corner?? 😱
Its possibly to our advantage that the stadium is a big loss maker for the taxpayer. It might hasten the day when we can own it and improve it for football use. The original bidding process for the stadium post Olympics was to buy it but bungling Boris Johnson as London mayor and coniving Levy of Tottenham scuppered that plan.
The Olympic park however is a resounding success, full of life and people!
Didn’t a certain baroness call it the ‘deal of the century’, and wasn’t it all Boris’s idea? I remember Daniel Levy wanted to demolish and rebuild as part of Tottenham’s failed bid. The cost to all Londoners is now incredible. David Gold told someone I knew that he reckoned the club would eventually just be given the stadium and land, so the authorities could cut their losses. I think DG may just be proven right one day. The club has played hard ball so far. It may just pay off.
Notwithstanding thd eye watering cost, the GLA, West Ham, and British Atletics are all locked into long term contracts with no viable way out. The damage was done before the Olympic games when the establishment refused to contemplate built in convertability to a football stadium.
Spot on! .. I think Lord Coe and his Olympic Legacy was a big part of that ..
The London taxpayer needs to thanks Spurs and Orient for the ongoing need to subsidise the stadium.
Given Sullivan seems to have no interest to sell, maybe we need to be grateful to Spurs and Orient as I’m not convinced we have the commercial acumen within our Board to have turned the stadium into a profitable asset!
The sensible thing would be for them to sell it to us for a quid. It could be redeveloped into a proper football ground.
We could give them a percentage of future profits generated by the stadiums other uses. Concerts, American football etc. So Kahn saves face and athletics could go to Birmingham.
Very true
The desire at the time of the Olympic bids was to ensure that the entire site would not become a derelict wilderness after the event. Much thought and money went in to ensure that there would be a legacy from the 2012 London Olympics offering permanent sporting venues available to the people of the area.
Too many such event parks had been abandoned post Games. It was important that this did not happen this time.
The Stadium was designed solely for the athletic events in 2012. It might have been nice if it had been designed, funded and built with certain future use in mind. However, there was a deadline for construction and there was no opportunity to discuss and agree with a future tenant or buyer any details of building conversion.
The Olympic people got exactly what they wanted. Any ongoing losses are just crass mismanagement by the Legacy company LOCOG. There is nobody left to account for what has gone before.
West Ham are totally innocent of any complicity in these costs. West Ham moved into the stadium as an anchor tenant and LOCOG were very pleased that the legacy dream came true.
Current mismanagement of the Stadium may be interesting as a story but typical of a council run facility.
Nobody cares what the stadium costs. I think we’d all rather knock it down and build a new one. Just give us the stadium and the land it’s built on and let us build a new football stadium. We just have to wait for that idiot of a mayor to go first.
Why should you be given the stadium when your owmers sold your old ground and pocketed the proceeds?
If you want the stadium then pay for it
Why should we want to own it when it only costs us £2 mill a year
I have to agree. WHU should pay the amount they sold the Boleyn ground for!
I think it wholly unreasonable for West Ham to expect the stadium for nothing and I have strong doubts that the club would be able to afford to buy it at market rates…..or indeed, that the board would have an interest in pursuing such a proposal.