Readers of a certain vintage may recall the popular panel game show that screened on British TV for much of the 1960s, '70s and '80s.
The game consisted of two teams of three people each who would earn points by identifying the correct definition of an obscure word. One team would present three definitions of the word and the other team had to determine which one was correct, with the other two being bluffs.
In his own way, the current Mayor of London has raised the concept of calling someone’s bluff again with his reported remarks concerning the London Stadium on Friday.
When questioned whether there is a contingency plan for the London Stadium should prospective new owners wish to depart and construct a new ground elsewhere, the Mayor is quoted* as saying: "At the moment, we're in a contract with West Ham. But if there are new owners for West Ham, we'd be happy to talk to them and the current owners as well.
"We're always more than happy to speak to people who want to organise events at London. The London Stadium is a gorgeous stadium and so, hypothetically speaking, if in the future West Ham wanted to vacate that stadium, I’m sure we’d have lots of other uses for it.
"These stadiums are fantastic ways for fans getting to watch the team they love. Some stadiums, frankly speaking, the fans, whether it's the poor form of the team or the way the stadium's been built, not all fans love. But we'll speak to the new owners if there are new owners, if and when that occurs."
There are a few nuggets in there, not least of which is a seeming willingness to see West Ham United vacate the London Stadium. Without directly encouraging it, the Mayor made it clear with his remarks he wouldn’t exactly fight tooth and nail to prevent it, confident in his belief “we’d have other uses for it”, the "we" of course being the taxpayer.
Some might think Khan is simply upping the ante, trying to bluff his way into persuading West Ham United to make an attractive commercial offer in exchange for gaining full operational control. That is a school of thought grounded in the belief that the losses being incurred by the stadium operation are such that the Mayor is desperate to offload the place.
It’s certainly easy to believe that may be the thought process of our club's Vice Chair, who, it wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine may have either indicated a willingness to take the place off the taxpayers' hands or wouldn’t hesitate to do so, should the opportunity arise. Save the taxpayer a few bob by taking over full control of the stadium's day-to-day running.
In reality the losses incurred running the London Stadium by LS185 are small, so I doubt it will be seen as a compelling argument in City Hall. Nevertheless, what if the Mayor isn’t bluffing?
What if he is really putting a call out there to anyone thinking of buying West Ham United that he really wouldn’t handcuff them to a stadium they had never signed up for? What if he really does have “other uses for it”?
At the very least it undermines any kind of low-ball offer from our current owners in exchange for operational control. Arguably it clarifies to anyone thinking of buying West Ham United Football Club that the London Stadium need not feature in their concerns or plans - unless they want it to.
At a stroke the club's current owners have seen one possible barrier to achieving a sale of the club removed. Equally, if - as we are led to believe - the current owners have no interest in selling the club, the Mayor's remarks suggest he is not forcing them to stay at the London Stadium. Should they remain, it’s because they want to.
The Mayor's comments appear to suggest a couple of messages. Don’t rent from the taxpayer with a bad heart is one, another being, the stadium isn’t for sale . The narrative, popular amongst West Ham United supporters is the taxpayer wants rid of the London Stadium. Maybe.
Just as likely though if the Mayor's claims are true is the taxpayer would be happy to keep the London Stadium, and use it for something other than West Ham United. You’re not chucking me, I’m chucking you.
That of course rules out even the remote, distant possibility of the physical configuration of the stadium ever changing. It was built for athletics, and even if a point is reached where no athletics ever features, the stadium will not change shape. Simply put, the Mayor has issued a timely reminder of who owns the stadium. And who doesn’t.
Meanwhile, a little more than a mile from the London Stadium, there is another football club that also plays in a stadium they do not own, Leyton Orient FC.
It’s nearly forty years since I’ve been to Brisbane Road, the 1-1 FA cup 3rd round draw in 1987. In the interim both clubs have been through too many managers to mention, multiple ownerships and in Leyton Orient's case, they sold their ground long before we sold ours. They’ve been leasing theirs since 2004, with Brisbane Road being owned by the London Borough of Waltham Forest.
Ahead of us selling our home to move to the London Stadium, the then Orient owner Barry Hearn objected , fearing our presence would overshadow his club and hasten their demise. Or at least that was his version.
Would it be remiss of me to suggest he may simply have wanted to move into the London Stadium with us to get out of his club's lease with LBWF or some such benefit? Maybe. It seems nobody can resist a bargain. If there’s a chance of getting something for nothing, football as an Industry is generally at the front of the queue.
Mr. Hearn has long since sold up at Leyton Orient and they changed hands again, last April, for a sum in the region of £15m. That’s just for the club, not the ground, which remained in the hands of LBWF. The new owner, an American of course, is called David Gandler, an executive in the Sports streaming industry who founded a company called FuBo TV.
His arrival has the blessing of the O's, who, like ourselves were seeking additional investment. Football, at every level, burns through cash like few other industries. In simple terms, he is their Daniel Kretinsky, investing allegedly without seeking day-to-day control, but , probably not as wealthy as the Sphinx.
He brings with him the ambition of moving the O’s up to the Championship , a level they’ve not been at for 45 years, and intends to build a new stadium that doubles their capacity. Think Bournemouth, think Brentford. Whether or not he has the personal funds to finance that remains to be seen, but it’s entirely possible he will act as the focal point other wealthy backers will coalesce around.
The flow of money into football increasingly comes from venture capital and complex investment vehicles. Big bets are being placed by multiple investors all over European football.
In less than six months he has managed to persuade the LBWF to sign a Memorandum of Understanding that seeks an alternate site to Brisbane Road within their Borough.
Thus far, no location has been identified, or at least, if it has, it’s not been put into the public arena. The Northern-most tip of the Olympic Park that sits within the Borough of Waltham Forest might be one option. Brisbane Road of course would just become flats, much as our home became. In my left hand is history, heritage and memories. In my right are dollars. Lots of them.
Tempting as it is to suggest maybe our Vice Chair should cry foul for fear they get too close they could hasten our demise, I’m more inclined to suggest we may be better served believing this could be the moment Opportunity Knocks.
The stark reality is for all of the emphasis on trying to gain full operational control of the London Stadium, all it will get the supporters are some marginal improvements. Perhaps. Perhaps Rail seating will be introduced. Perhaps there will be some kind of family area. Perhaps the stewarding will improve. Perhaps the pointless pat-downs at security will end, perhaps the endless queues to get in will get shorter.
Perhaps, perhaps , perhaps.
What absolutely will not happen is there will not be an improved seat in the stadium, the C value that determine the sightlines will remain at the UEFA minimum acceptable standard, the lower and upper tiers will be no closer together, or the pitch. The view from block 250 will be the same regardless of who has control of the stadium.
A major complaint from many of those who still attend is the degree of disconnect between themselves and the action on the pitch due to the distances involved. The club gaining Operational control of the stadium will not improve that one iota.
Gaining operational control creates the illusion of improvement without ever really addressing the fundamental issue. The physical size and shape of the stadium is for athletics. It’s not a football ground and never will be.
That’s not to say supporters shouldn’t seek those incremental improvements, and the F.A.B. is doing a good job in pushing the club for them, but we need be clear eyed as to what they are. Incremental. Small, marginal, almost imperceptible. They may make a difference, but they won’t make the difference.
It’s widely believed one of the reasons Daniel Kretinsky made his initial investment in West Ham United was the belief there may have been an opportunity to buy the London Stadium, and once he established that wasn’t possible he has gone cold on further investment. I can’t comment as to the veracity of that widely-held view, but if we accept it as a working theory maybe he ought to have a look at the Northern end of the Olympic Park.
Maybe there’s an opportunity to reach agreement with a fellow investor on how two clubs could finance one football stadium. Maybe Mr. Sullivan could achieve something closer to his aspirational exit price if the club's second largest shareholder can see a legitimate upside in a new, albeit shared home?
Around about now I expect howls of derision, screams of "you must be joking!", I get it. Ask yourself, would you rather watch West Ham United play in a football ground we at the very least co-own, less than two miles away from where we currently play, or forever remain at the athletics stadium, basking in the glory of a new beer shelf?
Before answering that, don’t get bogged down in issues like transport, fixture scheduling or false pride about not sharing with another club. All of those were shoved aside ahead of the move to Stratford. We’ve already lost everything we already had. We lose nothing getting out of the London Stadium we haven’t already lost.
We’ve seen the future that is the London Stadium and the supporters don’t want it, the thousands of empty seats every week bear testimony to that.
I’m sure every single West Ham United supporter would prefer we own our own football ground, sharing with nobody, but we don’t have that right now, and no prospect of it on the horizon . As for the O’s, their supporters wouldn’t be wild about it either, but that F.A. Cup tie I went to had nearly 20,000 there. There’s rather fewer these days.
Perhaps Daniel Kretinsky should pick the phone up to David Gandler? Maybe he suggests a 20,000 seat stadium is nice, but a 50,000 seat football ground would be better. "You find a site, I’ll bring the cash" sort of deal.
The difficulties of course are not really about money, they’re about culture, identity and turf. Local pride and local communities. Football clubs are meant to represent the communities in which they are based. We know that more than most, we gave up more than just a stadium when we moved.
It’s not necessarily anything to do with physical distance, one mile in London being a further distance than a mile in Brighton or Sunderland. Just ask anyone who lives in Whitechapel who walks due West, in less than 200 yards they are in what must seem like a different world.
Brighton however, is, well, Brighton, though doubtless somebody from the Hove Popular Front may write in and tell me otherwise. Splitters, they’re everywhere.
Would the prospect of sharing a new football ground with West Ham United see fans of The O’s outside, pitchforks in hand, defending “their” turf ? I would think it highly probable, but as we discovered, money talks and BS walks. If only.
Their supporters may have concerns they could become the TSV 1860 to our Bayern Munich, but TSV were the architects of their own demise, not the victim of some Machavellian plot.
The joint venture that saw those two clubs initially become the co-owners of the Allianz Arena very much ended in tears for the smaller club, not because of anything the larger club did, more to suggestions of financial misconduct by TSV 1860.
What was originally co-ownership turned into a landlord/tenant situation with the tenant subsequently being evicted at a later date, not so much a no fault eviction, more of a no cash eviction.
Historically however, the two clubs had co-habited for many years, first at the Grunwalder Stadion, then the Olympicstadion, which, interestingly both clubs' fans hated. TSV are now back at the Grunwalder in the third tier of German football while Bayern are reduced to signing Tottenham cast offs, but playing in a decent football stadium.
Hard times. Hard choices. Should we at least find out if there could be a choice to improve our lot in more than just an incremental way? Maybe both clubs' supporters should be asking the question, maybe they shouldn’t. The clubs' owners however, really should. The politicians most certainly will be.
Who knows, maybe the O’s owner would dismiss any such idea out of hand. Maybe the Mayor, faced with the prospect of losing our presence, becomes less bullish. Maybe our supporters, those that remain, if faced with the prospect of another move would throw their arms up in horror.
A nigh-on decade at Stratford has seen match routines embedded, travel efficiency maximized and a pub or bar to have a drink and a snack in before the game sorted. Many supporters are now comfortable.
That of course, is right up to the point where they have to go to the stadium. The dreaded, awful, spirit sapping, miserable, cold, desolate stadium to watch the football. Supporters have made the best of what they can in terms of their matchday, but the stadium is the one problem they cannot solve, and with each passing season a few thousand more vote with their feet. An actual attendance greater than 50,000 is pretty rare.
Many still cling to the dream of the club one day owning the freehold at the London Stadium, of a billionaire knocking it down and rebuilding it as a football ground. Time, I’m afraid to get real. That will never happen. We’ve been through the arguments on kumb.com for a decade. The soil, the state aid, the cost.
If you want to watch West Ham United play a home match in a football ground, the club will have to move. Again. Like Brighton did.
And there we have it. I’ve come full circle from fiercely opposing West Ham United moving home a decade ago to being an advocate for it happening again now. The moving, while painful culturally, hasn’t proven to be the biggest issue. The biggest issue remains the what we moved to and what it will never be.
If the Mayor really is offering a low or no cost exit, the club should explore options, and call his bluff. But this time, how about some legitimate consultation with supporters?
*Quotes attributed to The London Mayor as reported by Patrick Austen-Hardy, published in The Mirror online.
* Like to share your thoughts on this article? Please visit the KUMB Forum to leave a comment.
* Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the highlighted author/s and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of KUMB.com.