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29 March 2024

London Olympic stadium deal collapses

Published
By AP

The deal to award London's Olympic Stadium to West Ham football club after the 2012 Games has collapsed due to mounting concerns about legal challenges over the bidding process, the British government said Tuesday.

The 486 million pound ($760 million) stadium will instead remain in public ownership after the Olympics and be rented out to the winner of a new bidding process.

The battle for control of the stadium has been increasingly acrimonious since West Ham was selected ahead of London rival Tottenham in February to be the preferred long-term tenant.

"The action we have taken today is about removing the uncertainty — the process had become bogged down in legal paralysis," British sports minister Hugh Robertson said. "We know there is huge interest in the stadium out there from private operators and football clubs and crucially we remove any uncertainty.

"This is not a white elephant stadium where no one wants it, we have had two big clubs fighting tooth and nail to get it."

London's High Court had approved Tottenham's request to mount a full legal challenge against the decision by West Ham's local authority to provide a 40-million pound ($63 million) loan to fund the second-tier club's move into the stadium.

Fourth-tier east London club Leyton Orient was also challenging the decision, while an anonymous complaint to the European Commission about the apparent use of Newham Council funds by West Ham fueled concerns that the legal disputes could drag on for years.

Robertson also said the Olympic Park Legacy Company received a letter from Newham on Monday saying that "because of the uncertainty they no longer wanted to proceed."

"That was the straw that broke the camel's back and we thought it better to stop it dead in it tracks now," Robertson said.

But West Ham said it will bid again under the new terms that could be more financially favorable for the east London club, which was relegated from the Premier League in May.

Some 35 million pounds ($55 million) has already earmarked under the Olympic budget to downsize the stadium from an 80,000 to a 60,000-seat facility after the games.

One certainty is that the running track will remain in the stadium regardless of the outcome, with London bidding to host the 2017 world athletics championships.

"It's fantastic for UK Athletics and it is a bold and decisive move by the legacy company," UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner said.

West Ham had planned to retain the running track after leaving Upton Park, but Tottenham proposed knocking down most of the stadium and building a 60,000-seat, football-only venue on the same site without any athletics legacy.