West Ham in legal row over stadium

As MoS reveals former Olympic venue will soon have cost taxpayers a staggering £1BILLION...

WEST HAM are embroiled in a multimillion pound secret legal battle with owners of the London Stadium, who have spent more than £7million of taxpayers’ money already on lawyers’ fees in tussles with the club.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that a new and secret spat between the publicly funded London Legacy Development Corporation and the club, who are its principle tenant, is ongoing and will only add to that figure. We can also reveal the true cost to taxpayers of what was the Olympic Stadium will reach £1BILLION before the end of this decade.

Lyn Garner, the chief executive of the LLDC, revealed to a London assembly meeting there was ‘a continuing, significant financial and legal dispute with West Ham’.

Sources have confirmed this revolves around how much money LLDC are due from an investment in the club by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky in November 2021. Kretinsky paid £168.75m for a 27 per cent stake.

WEST HAM are embroiled in a multi-million pound secret legal battle with owners of the London Stadium, who have spent more than £7million of taxpayers’ money already on lawyers’ fees in tussles with the club, In The Money can reveal.

This newspaper has learned that a new and secret spat between the publicly funded London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) and the club, who is its principle tenant, is ongoing and will only add to that figure.

We can also reveal the true cost to taxpayers of what was the Olympic Stadium will reach £1BILLION before the end of this decade.

Lyn Garner, CEO of the LLDC, told a recent London assembly meeting there was ‘a continuing, significant financial and legal dispute with West Ham.’

Sources have confirmed this revolves around how much money LLDC are due from an investment in the club by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky in November 2021. Kretinsky paid £168.75m for a 27 per cent stake in West Ham.

Under the terms of the stadium lease, West Ham had to pay LLDC a fee if the club’s owners financially benefited from the move to the stadium within 10 years of signing the agreement, for example by selling part of the club, a period which ended last Friday. The Kretinsky investment was inside the 10-year period that began when West Ham signed their deal in March 2013, to move in from the 2016-17 season.

West Ham have paid LLDC a penalty clause worth £2.6m, but the LLDC, who have repeatedly said West Ham’s tenancy is a drain on the public purse, believe they are contractually due more. The exact sum is not in the public domain but it is understood the agreement between the parties specifies a figure or percentage that LLDC are due as a ‘Stadium Premium Amount’.

The revelation of the spat comes as a shock as it was thought relations between the two parties had thawed considerably. But the MoS has learned that the taxpayer has spent £7.1m (and rising) on

legal fees since the club was awarded its lease.

As long ago as 2018, Garner revealed the extraordinary extent to which West Ham received ‘free’ services as part of their £2.5m annual rent; they pay nothing

towards stewarding, heating, maintenance, cleaning, or even equipment, such as goalposts and nets. Nor do they pay catering staff, and while LLDC, or rather the LLDC subsidiary company (called E20 Stadium LLP) pocket food and

drink revenues, West Ham have financial advantages most clubs do not have.

The club declined to comment on the ongoing case although they and supporters have generally argued that at least London 2012 did not

end up with a post-Games white elephant.

The ongoing cost has continued to be a bugbear for Garner and the LLDC, however. The Government used £486m to build the stadium and spent the majority of an additional £274m to convert if after the Games. West Ham paid £15m of that, while Newham Council contributed £40m.

Yet on top of that £760m, E20 Stadium have made consistent losses since West Ham moved in, of between £19.6m and £29.1m per year. Large chunks of those losses are effectively spent subsidising West Ham.

Losses of ‘only’ £10m a year going forward are seen as ‘extremely optimistic’ by the London Assembly in official documents, and are likely to remain closer to £20m a year. At that rate, spending on the stadium (most of it public money) will reach £1bn by 2029.