West Ham’s new owners have made moving the premiership football club to the 2012 Olympics Stadium the central focus of plans to recuperate the struggling club.
Former Birmingham FC owners David Sullivan and David Gold have been granted full operational control of West Ham after taking a 50% stake in the club, which values it at £105m, slightly more than its outstanding debt of £102m.
The central part of the owners’ strategy for reviving the club is a move from their current 35,000-capacity home at Upton Park to the nearby Olympic Stadium.
“If we could get this huge ground, we could take football back to the people,” Sullivan said.
“We could reduce the admission prices to the cheapest in the Premier League because we would have the capacity to do it.”
Sullivan said he thought there was a better than 50-50 chance of the government agreeing to let West Ham become tenants of the stadium.
See the Estates Gazette Olympics blog for more.
paul.norman@estatesgazette.com
