West ham aim to move to Olympic Stadium

IT WOULD be a move of less than four miles, but the idea at the heart of the West Ham survival plan is deeply controversial.


New owners David Sullivan and David Gold want to move the club to London’s Olympic stadium when the 2012 Games are over.

Sullivan said: “The short-term priority is to make use of what is left of the transfer window and stay in the Premier League. But the long-term objective – stability and growth – means moving to the Olympic stadium and we’ve got to get going on that straight away as well.

“We want to meet Newham Council, who are supportive, and then start lobbying the Government. We need a bigger stadium to compete with Arsenal, who have moved to a ground that holds 60,000, and Tottenham, who are building a new, big stadium.

“The advantage to West Ham of going to the Olympic stadium would be the huge capacity and enormous commercial potential, both of which would allow us to reduce ordinary ticket prices. We want the lowest prices in the Premier League, so that ordinary working people can go to football and so that it is not an elitist sport. We will take the club back to the people.”

West Ham have played at the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park for 106 years, but it is hemmed in by residential streets and holds only 35,000. The Olympic stadium, under construction at Stratford, was supposed to cost £280million, but that has escalated to £525million. It will hold 80,000, but the present plan is that it should only be that big for the fortnight in which it will be used for the Games. Then the upper sections of the giant bowl will be dismantled to leave a smaller stadium holding 25,000 spectators.

Sullivan said: “The current plan is an obscene waste of money. In this new, credit-crunch era, it is beyond my comprehension that anyone can talk about spending millions building a big stadium and then spending more tearing it down. What is left is supposed to be for athletics and there is talk of a rugby club going there, but both those sports get crowds of 5,000. We’d keep it at 80,000 and fill it.”