London Stadium Discussions

Since the Hammers moved to the London Stadium in 2016, they have had little to no control over the decisions ongoing in the stadium and in the event of a proposed change, there always seem to be difficulties when it comes to concluding deals due to the financial implications.

The committee only meets once per year, and it happens to be in the summer, which you will see causes a whole bunch of complications. The stadium currently holds the ability to host 10 non-sporting events, which translates to 10 concerts, but the London Stadium LLP would like to host more to meet and match what Spurs do (20), but this would require West Ham to miss out on home games during September and play more away, so gigs could be held… just a casual complication.

The other factor is due to the limited money our previous primary shareholder put in… combined with the unwillingness to budge from the London Stadium LLP, it is difficult to make meaningful changes to improve the stadium. However, one possibility they are looking into once again is changing all of the white seats to either Claret & Blue or just Claret.

It would be a possibility to achieve and wouldn’t be too difficult to make happen financially; however, finding the time, on the other hand, is difficult and either more away games will have to be played or more concerts will have to be missed out on - someone will have to budge!

The last important factor that was discussed was the Stadium naming rights, a financial powerhouse in Football that isn’t taken as seriously as it should be, and West Ham not having a naming deal over the last decade has cost the club over £150m in revenue - could’ve secured the Carlos Bacca deal with that!

The London Stadium LLP have accused West Ham of being the stubborn factor when negotiating a deal and are supposedly the reason why the Vodafone naming rights deal in 2017 collapsed.

Regarding a future sponsorship, it was said: “It's probably not the right time to sell the naming rights when we're in the Championship. We need to get back into the Premier League.

"But there are lots of preparatory things that we can do to present a united front in terms of putting the naming rights to the market.

"Because one of the reasons the deal didn't work in 2024 was because we were not a united front, and any partner coming to the table wants a clean, easy deal where they have a single point of contact and they can get on with their commercial opportunity.”

The proposed deal in 2024 that collapsed was set to be with Allianz.

The relationship with the London Stadium LLP now has a chance to blossom, seeing as the previous negotiators on the Hammers’ side have now dissipated; it’s time to see what will be done in the future, but all in all, it’s an excruciatingly tough dynamic to work with, and should West Ham own the stadium outright one day, all of these difficulties fade away.