West Ham and their London Stadium landlords are involved in a legal dispute over plans for more seating at the arena, the London Assembly was told on Wednesday.
West Ham, the lead tenants of the former Olympic Stadium on a £2.5million per year, 99-year lease, wish to add 9,000 seats to take the capacity of the arena to 66,000, Gerry Murphy, the acting chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation said.
The dispute with the LLDC centres on the operating costs of making the additional seats available, plus the revenue from those seats if they are made available.
West Ham and their London Stadium landlords are in a legal dispute over more seating
Murphy told a London Assembly Budget Monitoring Sub-Committee meeting: ‘There is a dispute with West Ham about what the contract says in terms of capacity.
‘West Ham have absolutely said that they want to increase the capacity to 60,000. And actually they want to further increase the capacity to 66,000.
‘LLDC and E20 (the landlords) disagrees with their interpretation of the contract.
‘We feel that actually if West Ham want to enjoy more seats then they should commensurately pay more.
‘And that’s the gist of the disagreement between us and it is subject to legal proceedings.’
West Ham want to install an extra 9,000 seats to take the capacity of the stadium to 66,000
West Ham’s present capacity is 57,000, with LLDC receiving a flat fee from the tenancy agreement, plus a share of the catering revenue.
Murphy says the Hammers began to ask for the increased capacity at the start of 2017-18 season.
Asked who would benefit from the revenue from any additional seating, Murphy said: ‘West Ham’s argument is they would receive all of the extra revenue from the extra seats. We would contend we should get a share of that.’
Wednesday’s meeting followed the publication of the Moore Stephens Olympic Stadium Review, which reported in November on the arena built for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and funded by tax payers.
The dispute is centred on the operating costs of making the additional seats available
Seating and the cost of moving seats to different configurations was also discussed.
There was an £11.7m bill for altering the seating for last summer’s World Para Athletics Championships and IAAF World Championships, held in the stadium in July and August. This was more than £1.7m above the high end of the £8m to £10m estimate.
Murphy, though, said costs to reconfigure the stadium following the football season, to host athletics and music concerts, would be far lower after efficiency savings were made.
The cost for 2018 would be £4m, she said, while estimates for 2019 are still to be determined, as the London Stadium could host Cricket World Cup matches that summer.
There was an £11.7m bill for altering the seating for last summer’s IAAF World Championships
LLDC has previously been in active discussions with telecoms giant Vodafone on naming rights, but is still seeking a sponsor and still values the rights at £4m per year.
Murphy added: ‘We’re reviewing our options for re-presenting the naming rights for the stadium to the market. We won’t do that until next year.
‘We’re considering it as part of our commercial strategy that’s in development for the stadium basis.
‘I’m very confident that at a point in time we’ll get a naming rights sponsor.
‘We have been close twice and I’m confident we’ll find the right partner.’