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West Ham urged to buy the London Stadium
Martin Samuel believes West Ham should buy the London Stadium to help save British Athletics.
Speaking in his column for the Daily Mail, Samuel urged the Irons to “bulldoze” the London Stadium and buy the land for themselves and build a football stadium.
This would then allow British Athletics to return to Crystal Palace and would, in theory, make the Irons happier as well.
He said: “Imagine if days after the 2012 Games ended, the arena that hosted Super Saturday was bulldozed to the ground for a Premier League football club. It would have felt as short-sighted as the decision to turn the original Cavern Club into a car park.
“With the passing of time, however, that would now be the way forward.
“Let West Ham, the London Stadium’s primary tenants, purchase and develop the site for football and ring-fence some of the funds to make Crystal Palace the home of athletics again.”
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Good idea or not?
As it stands, the Irons don’t own the London Stadium, and they rent it from the London Legacy Development Corporation.
Now, considering that David Sullivan and David Gold wanted to move to the London Stadium for a long time, we can’t see why they would suddenly decide to bulldoze the ground [Hammers United].
This is a nice idea and would, in theory, potentially save British Athletics, but given that the Irons pay just £2.5million per year to rent the stadium, we can’t see the Hammers buying the ground under the current ownership [The Independent].
If Sullivan and Gold were to sell, then Samuel’s dream could become a reality, but we can’t see the Irons trying to buy the London Stadium for themselves until that happens.
Obviously, it would be fantastic if the Hammers owned their ground as they could then make changes or even replace it with another stadium, but that won’t happen under this regime.
In other West Ham news, Declan Rice was impressed with one player against Leeds.
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