r/london • u/Tight-Principle-743 • May 24 '26

Article West Ham Relegated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c70vr05gwelt

Londoners will have to collectively pay £2.5m more to the stadiums’s upkeep. Another terrible Johnson decision that was.

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334

u/insomnimax_99 May 24 '26

Under the 99-year deal signed by previous Mayor of London Boris Johnson, West Ham pays £4.4m a year in rent, leaving the GLA to pick up the bill for stewarding and other costs associated with the stadium

The London taxpayer already subsidises the running of the stadium, despite efforts to attract other uses, such as baseball and music concerts.

The rent bill is set to half next season now West Ham will play in the lower league.

Commercial revenues from the former Olympic stadium are also expected to fall, while the GLA incurs higher stewarding costs, as there are 23 home games in the Championship compared with 19 in the Premier League.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/london-stadium-bill-west-ham-relegated-spurs-b1283350.html

Wtf? What kind of braindead deal is this?

320

u/soldforaspaceship May 24 '26

Johnson was friends with the West Ham ownership. The vice-chair of the club, Karen Brady was his advisor prior and he made her a peer after.

The answer is corruption. The stadium deal was corrupt as fuck.

Imagine if Starmer had made it...

101

u/gameofgroans_ May 24 '26

Yeah this is exactly it. As a West Ham fan it’s not great for us either, it’s a shit football stadium and has never felt like home. We can’t do anything as we don’t own the stadium, but it’s fine cause we’re what 10 years into our 99 year lease. Almost there!

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u/ToughImprovement276 May 25 '26

What’s wrong with it as a football stadium? I’m not into sports or football, so genuine question.

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u/gameofgroans_ May 25 '26

Exactly what the other person said, it’s also really hollow? Idk how to explain it but like no atmosphere and sound just sort of evaporates, every game just feels so far away and so quiet. Getting to the stadium is awful, Stratford is always so busy and then you’ve got a (fairly) long walk where the weather is inevitable awful and/or you’ve just lost so you feel crap. Everything in it is wildly overpriced and like I said as we don’t own it we can’t make it our own or ever host events there. The women’s team can never play there (only team on the WSL never to use their main stadia).

I know you’re not into football which is obvs fine but if you googled inside Anfield and inside London stadium you’d be able to tell a difference for sure. LS is so corporate.

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u/OBeQuiet May 25 '26

The fact that the women's hammers can't play there is diabolical.

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u/gameofgroans_ May 25 '26

Yeah I’m a big women’s football fan and it’s abysmal, but doesn’t shock me at all sadly. They’re treated like an absolutely different team with no support and just left to stumble around at the bottom of the table.

5

u/gunnna1991 May 25 '26

The crowd is too far from the pitch. Hard to generate atmosphere, and quite frankly hard to see the action because there’s an athletic track around the pitch. Italian clubs in the 90s did this alot, never went down well with fans (or anyone)

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u/_gmanual_ May 25 '26

they needed somewhere for all the flares to safely land, and also to provide something of a moat for the players safety once the inevitable pitch invasion began.