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Wils 6:31 Fri May 6
UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium and open door for West Ham transformation

Exclusive: If athletics’ national governing body walk away, it would allow West Ham to turn their home into a full-time football ground

By Ben Rumsby 5 May 2022 • 7:00pm

It is thought UK Athletics could be offered somewhere between £10m-£15m to step aside
It is thought UK Athletics could be offered somewhere between £10m-£15m to step aside Credit: GETTY IMAGES
Talks have been held over UK Athletics (UKA) quitting the London Stadium in a move that could allow West Ham United to transform it into a full-time football ground, but which raises major questions about the legacy of the 2012 Olympics and any future bid for the Games.

Telegraph Sport can reveal preliminary discussions have taken place about athletics’ national governing body giving up the right to stage the likes of the Anniversary Games at the venue each summer, something it was granted for 50 years following pledges made during the capital’s bid to host the world’s biggest sporting event.

Telegraph Sport has been told talks centre on UKA being paid somewhere between £10m-£15m to walk away from the £760m centrepiece of Britain’s greatest sporting summer and the scene of arguably its greatest night, which saw Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Mo Farah and Greg Rutherford all win gold on London 2012’s ‘Super Saturday’.

UKA quitting the publicly owned stadium, which also hosted the 2017 World Championships, would pave the way for its running track to be torn up and potentially for permanent seating to be installed in its place, saving the £3m spent every time the venue is converted to stage athletics.

It could even lead to the sale of the loss-making icon to West Ham, who themselves could be sold to new shareholder Daniel Kretinsky next year. That is when a clause in the so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ they struck to become the stadium’s anchor tenants for just £2.5m a year expires, requiring them to pay a windfall tax of up to 30 per cent on any profits.

Last month saw the club confirm they were increasing the capacity of the London Stadium from 60,000 to 62,500 and were reconfiguring the West Stand to “further develop a more traditional football stadium layout”.

Telegraph Sport has been told the venue could still form part of a future bid for the Olympics – one for 2036 has been openly discussed – or Commonwealth Games were UKA to walk away.

That may require the temporary installation of an elevated track similar to that which allowed Hampden Park to stage the athletics competition at Glasgow 2014.


Buying the London Stadium could be a game changer for West Ham Credit: GETTY IMAGES
But the cost involved would almost certainly rule out any smaller track-and-field events being staged at the London Stadium in future.

Instead, the Anniversary Games and other meetings would be held at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium, the centrepiece of this summer’s Commonwealth Games, that is already staging this year’s equivalent in the Birmingham Diamond League later this month, after the coronavirus crisis led to the World Championships, European Championships and Commonwealth Games all being held this summer.

Indeed, the pandemic has meant there has now been no athletics at the London Stadium since the 2019 Anniversary Games after the 2020 event was cancelled and last year’s was moved to Gateshead.

The latter followed an extraordinary legal row between UKA and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), the public body which owns the stadium.

The LLDC ended up paying UKA around £1.8m in compensation after deciding the cancellation of other summer events at the London Stadium meant it could not justify the cost of converting the venue.

That was the latest in a succession of bust-ups between the venue’s owners and tenants, which can be traced back to the failure to recognise the only sustainable legacy at the London Stadium was a football one.

Had a little bit more been spent up front to build it with that in mind, it would have cost far less to convert it from football to athletics mode each summer.

Telegraph Sport has been told the new chairman of UKA, Ian Beattie, has been weighing up what it would lose and gain from giving up its base in one of the world’s great cities.

A £10m-£15m windfall would provide an immediate financial boost following a pandemic that cost it in the region of £2m and saw the BBC axe a £3m-a-year television deal with the governing body – a new contract has since been signed.

Paying UKA a low eight-figure sum to walk away could also make sense for the taxpayer, with the stadium having racked up losses of hundreds of millions of pounds on top of the initial £323m it cost to transform it into West Ham’s home.

Deals have previously been struck for the stadium to host the likes of Rugby World Cup games and Major League Baseball on a one-off basis, but it has failed to secure the naming rights partner seen as crucial to stemming its losses.

Baroness Brady, West Ham’s executive vice-chair, has previously said the club would be prepared to “look at” buying the ground.

She told the London Assembly in 2018: “When we first wanted to move in, we offered to buy the stadium, and we would have been responsible for all costs, and that was rejected.

“London Stadium craves direction. It should be a jewel in the crown. It needs financial control, it needs investment. It has nowhere near reached its potential and that’s incredibly frustrating.”

UKA declined to comment on its talks with the LLDC, a spokesperson for which said: “UKA has an agreement to hold events at the stadium annually. There is no event this year because of the Commonwealth Games and rescheduling of the World Championships.

“As with any partner, we regularly discuss future events but there is no change to the current contract.”

southbankbornnbred 5:01 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

This shit about the athletics track and legacy being necessary for any 'future bid' for the Games is a hilarious red herring started by a mate of mine who works in PR (yes, the dark side).

It's utter garbage and I've told him as much.

There isn't going to be a successful London bid for the Olympic Games now for another 50 or so years.

London became the first city to host the Games three times in 2012. We won't get a fourth any time soon. And the IOC is keen to take the summer Olympics to many new cities long before it thinks about London again. Rightly so.

New York, for example, has never hosted the summer Olympics. They're also looking at or encouraging Bueno Aires, Mexico City (again), Cape Town, Madrid, another China Olympics, Rome or Milan, India, Germany again, one of the Gulf states, eastern Europe (this was before the war!), Saudi, Canada and Istanbul.

What's that - another 50/60 years or so of Games?

It ain't coming back here any time soon. Rip the fucking track up and flog the stadium to West Ham for reconfiguration.

At current rates, UK taxpayers stand to pay out at least £2 billion to maintain the current stadium during the course of our lease. It's losing £25m to £30m a year.

Besides, there is a 'legacy'. Look at the Olympic Park, the Velodrome, the AquaCentre etc. Everybody's just getting their knickers wet over the athletics track that UK athletics cannot sustain financially.

J.Riddle 5:00 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

Seb Coe should resign then as there will be no legacy and tax payers have lost £100ms.

Levy was right it needs knocking down now and rebuilding, you can't polish a giant third.

pdcwhu 4:54 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

So Fuckin What

Lato 4:51 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

Cant see it myself.......how many make overs will there be? Just flatten it and start again....but we all know it that won't happen.

Our last 2 away games in the Europa have proved what a proper purpose built football stadium can feel, look and sound like!

stewey 4:39 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

Instead of “kids for a quid” we could buy a
“Ground for a pound”.

eusebiovic 4:14 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

No major surprises here!

Well, not to anybody who possesses something resembling a reasonably functioning brain...

11MDE 2:58 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

Great news. We'll get even 'massiver'.

Sven Roeder 10:18 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

Havent seen this Birmingham athletics stadium but have said before when the Commonwealth games are on in the summer we need to be using friendly press and PR companies to push the message about how great this middle of the country stadium is and how much London Stadium is costing the TAXPAYER this year and for decades to come.
And the ONLY solution is to stop the bleeding by handing it on to us.

pdbis 9:08 Fri May 6
Re: UK Athletics in talks to quit London Stadium

Was always just a matter of time.