by Staff Writer
Wednesday, 25th February 2026
Daily Mail journalist Oliver Holt has rated the London Olympic Stadium as the worst venue in the Premier League - and 89th in a list of all 92 football league grounds.
Holt, who released his updated football ground list today after visiting Everton's Hill Dickenson Stadium last week, referred to the Stratford area as a "dog's sinner of a football ground" - and slammed the club's board for forcing through a move from Upton Park ten years ago.
"I don’t even like calling it the London Stadium," said Holt. "It’s the Olympic Stadium, but it suits the David Sullivan-Karren Brady rebrand of the club to give it the capital’s name.
"It was a great athletics arena and home to a whole host of golden memories at London 2012 but it’s a dog’s dinner of a football ground. It’s also a monument to much that is wrong with the top flight of the English game: a surrender of identity and tradition as collateral damage in the owners’ pursuit of profit.
"Walking to it, sadly, feels a bit like walking through a wasteland and its odd configuration inside harms the atmosphere even though the fans are right up there with the best in the country. The old stadium at Upton Park was intimate and raucous and intimidating. The London Stadium is nothing like that.
"The owners spent a lot of time congratulating themselves on the deal they did to move to the new ground," concluded Holt. "They’re the archetypes of football owners who know the price of everything and the value of nothing."
A prominent English sports journalist and columnist, Holt is best known for his work with the Daily Mail and its sister title, the Mail on Sunday. As chief sports writer, he has covered major global events including multiple FIFA World Cups, Olympic Games, and UEFA European Championships.
Holt has received numerous honours, including multiple prizes at the British Sports Journalism Awards, reflecting his influence and longevity in the field. He is widely regarded as one of Britain’s most authoritative sports voices and commentators across media today.
List of Shame: Five Worst League Grounds, according to Oliver Holt
1. The Den, Millwall
"Let’s be honest about this: there are worse places to be banned from. Being banned from The Den is the football equivalent of being banned from your local abattoir. You don’t have to be a racist, misogynistic, homophobic bloke with anger issues and a penchant for tragedy-chanting to feel at home at The Den. But it helps."
2. Stadium MK, MK Dons
"It is a soulless, faceless, gloomy place. More than that, there is something rather forbidding about it. Its 30,000 capacity is too big for the club it hosts and, apart from the joys of the local KFC and McDonald’s, there is little to recommend in its immediate surrounds Its black seats lend it a sinister air, too. It’s the kind of stadium only its mother could love. And it doesn’t have a mother."
3. Kassam Stadium, Oxford United
"When they moved, around the turn of the century, they only completed three sides, abandoning the fourth because of rising costs. A particularly bitter wind blows in off the car park behind one of the goals and, from the main stand – in fact, from every stand – there is a magnificent and uninterrupted view of the Frankie and Benny’s in the mini retail park that abuts the ground."
4. London Stadium, West Ham United
"A monument to much that is wrong with the top flight of the English game: a surrender of identity and tradition as collateral damage in the owners’ pursuit of profit."
5. Hillsborough, Sheffield Wednesday
"I used to think of Hillsborough as one of the cathedrals of the English game but since the disaster that claimed the lives of 97 Liverpool fans in 1989, it is hard to get past its association with so much death and despair and heartbreak and betrayal of supporters."
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