West Ham CEO Karren Brady has admitted West Ham would think about buying the London Stadium if they were offered it, Football.London reports.
Brady was facing the London Assembly Budget Monitoring Sub-Committee meeting on Wednesday afternoon at City Hall where she was asked about the financial issues surrounding the stadium.
Stadium owners E20 are operating at a huge loss of £22m for the last financial year.
One solution to overcome the difficulties would be for West Ham to buy the stadium outright and Brady was quizzed on the likelihood of this eventuality at the meeting.
Brady said that there would be a few hurdles to get past if the club were to buy the stadium but didn’t rule out the possibility:
I think the London Stadium craves direction. I think it should be a jewel in the crown of London, it should be hosting events 365 days a year.
It really should have the commercial expertise it deserves, it should have the financial controls it so readily needs. I don’t think it is anywhere near realising its full potential and that, for me, is incredibly frustrating.
We could help such a lot in all of those regards but unfortunately our help has not been required or sought.
When we first wanted to move into the stadium, we offered to buy it. Which meant we would run it, which meant we would have been responsible for all of the costs and that was rejected. So we are where we are. We have no choice but to have the model that has been put in front of us. Of course we would like to be responsible.
That (buying the stadium) is certainly something we would look at. But we would have to be really clear about UK Athletics, the seat moves, the long-term maintenance costs.
Look, to be blunt, the reason we fixed our rent to fix as a contribution to the operating costs was because we did not want to find ourselves in the same position that E20 now find themselves in. We did not want to pick up costs of an operator which we have no control over.
If I put myself in E20’s place and I have to pick up contracts that they have signed, which don’t seem to be very commercially geared in my mind with the operator, with the seat moves, with UKA, with other users, then I think that would be a very difficult situation for anyone to take over.
Brady went on to say that talks have not been held about the potential of the club buying the stadium.
We haven’t discussed it. I think if it was to become a dedicated football stadium, with pop concerts, maybe the occasional rugby match, then that could be a seriously very good proposition. That might be something we are interested in.
The problem for this stadium is the cost of the seat moves for athletics. That is what drains this proposition of all its revenue.
