Vodafone has pulled out of a naming rights deal for the London Stadium after reporting massive annual losses of £5.2bn, due partly to a big write-down in the value of its Indian business.
The mobile phone giant, which operates in 26 countries, wrote down the value of its Indian unit by 3.7bn euros after a major price war broke out last year. Vodafone also admitted it had suffered a disappointing year in the UK.
Vodafone had planned to conclude a six-year £20m naming rights deal for the former Olympic Stadium over the summer worth £3.3m per year but has since changed its mind in the wake of massive losses.
Sources close to the mobile operator say the decision had nothing to do with the HMRC raids on West Ham despite a report in the Sun and Times this morning claiming that the giant had been scared off by negative publicity. A source close to the Stadium owners confirmed that Vodafone’s decision had nothing to do with the club.
On a positive note, the Claret and Hugh flag will be able to remain in position next season close the giant screen unless the naming rights are sold.
Why don’t West Ham buy the naming rights so we can officially call it ‘The West Ham United Stadium’
Hmmm because it is £20m and it already has the words West Ham United in large letters for FREE. What would we gain out of it?
just shows how everyone is dummed down about this when all the news reports are saying that West Ham lose out because of it.
We get nothing from that deal, and the government gets 3.3 mil per year. So the tax payer loses out because the government owned qwango are incapable of negotiating it.
Exactly Sleeps, if they had sold us the Stadium I have no doubts we would have a big money sponsorship deal and the tax payers including us would not be footed with the bill for the incompetence of the current negotiators.
ok,
great in theory
where would of the money to buy the stadium come from.
before any one points out we wanted to buy it before spurs scuppered that,
we were going to joint buy it and not put in retractable seating.
so the lower tier would of been 20 metres further away from the pitch that it is about now.
The money would come from the Chairmen, I am fairly certain that when they realised all that space (and revenue) going to waste they would have commissioned a retractable seating solution or pushed for DG’s preferred safe standing behind the goals at least. All speculation as it isn’t going to happen but the real travesty is why can’t these “negotiators” find a deal to sponsor the stadium, there are a lot of big businesses that would love to see their name across an iconic venue. Pay West Ham to do a deal and cut us in on the profits imho,
Yep West Ham got nothing out of the deal