A bargain on London Stadium was never an option

To secure the future of London’s Olympic Stadium, the choice has never been between a good deal and a bad deal, but rather between any deal or no deal at all, says James Ford.

I’m not a football fan. I don’t think I’ve watched an entire Premier League match, either in person or on TV. I don’t even support a team. But if I did, I’d probably be an Arsenal fan. (After all, I’m unfortunately middle class and know next to nothing about the game). I would go so far as to say that I know as little about football as the current Mayor of London does about big property deals at sporting venues.

So I was surprised to see Sadiq Khan, well-known Liverpool fan, sometime Mayor of London and master of hindsight, urging Londoners to cheer for West Ham to avoid relegation recently. Of course, this was not harmless expert work on Khan’s part, but rather an opportunity to take a dig at his popular predecessor Boris Johnson. In 2013, while trying to secure the future of the old Olympic Stadium, Johnson reached a controversial 99-year deal with West Ham to swap Upton Park for the Olympic Park. Khan described the West Ham deal as “the worst deal imaginable” and warned the Hammers’ relegation is set to cost London £2.5 million.

Finding survivors for Olympic venues is notoriously difficult

I am not going to defend the deal with West Ham over the London Stadium. The best gloss I can probably give it is that it’s defective. (Any deal in which financial obligations to the taxpayer are based on the idea that West Ham are, you know, still good at football seems fundamentally flawed to me). But it’s worth noting that a truly significant deal for the London Stadium was never on the table.

Securing a meaningful legacy at former Olympic and World Cup venues is notoriously difficult. Most – like those built for the Athens (2004) and Rio (2016) Games – end up as embarrassing, underutilized white elephants, crumbling and collecting moss once the Olympic flame is gone. Olympic stadiums are generally too large to accommodate most football franchises. The London Stadium has a greater capacity for sporting events than the Emirates, for example. Persuading a major team to move to a stadium that is too large and designed to accommodate athletic sports will always be difficult to convince. London 2012 venues have enjoyed a much better life beyond than their contemporaries in other countries.

I don’t want to sound cynical, but I think Sadiq Khan knows all of this. After all, the same Sadiq Khan who criticized the London Stadium deal also recently suggested that London’s Olympic venues should feature prominently in a future UK Olympic bid.

London Stadium deal was better than no deal at all

Indeed, when it comes to very poor security and administration deals (the basis of the London Stadium deal), the current Mayor is in a glass house throwing stones. As well as paying security and administration costs at West Ham matches, Town Hall also pays security and administration costs at the Notting Hill Carnival each year. This year the mayor has committed £5.6 million to fund the carnival, more than double the costs incurred by the town hall due to West Ham’s relegation. The amount spent by the council on carnival has increased by 1,000% since Sadiq Khan took office and this year’s grant is at least £4.6m more than allocated in 2024.

Unlike the agreement reached with West Ham, the funding of the Notting Hill Carnival by the town hall is not subject to restrictions. an ironclad 99-year contract but it is set on a rolling basis from year to year. (It’s a choice, not an obligation). We can either infer that Sadiq Khan simply has taxpayers’ money to spend (but would rather spend it on a free street party than keeping a sports venue open), or that Boris Johnson is not the biggest jerk to take the job of Mayor of London.

It is tempting to conclude that City Hall may be ill-equipped to negotiate multi-million pound stadium deals or organize agitation in the streets of west London. But, while Sadiq Khan may like to poo-poo the London Stadium deal, we should all be able to agree that the bad deal that was done was better than no deal at all. (And there’s certainly no evidence that Khan could have negotiated a better deal with the stadium). The real scandal would have been to leave the biggest venue in London 2012 to the tumbleweeds. It would have been the gravest betrayal of London’s Olympic heritage.

James Ford is a former advisor to London Mayor Boris Johnson