by Staff Writer
Wednesday, 1st April 2026
The ongoing row over the use of the London Stadium may have been resolved.
London is in the running to host the 2029 World Athletics Championships. However, the Championships are traditionally held at the close of the athletics season in September, at a time of the year when West Ham United have priority under the terms of the agreement to rent the stadium.
The row came to a head recently following a spectacularly ill-informed rant from athlete Keely Hodgkinson, whose comments to the effect that the club were “only renting” the stadium, seemed to miss the point that without that rent the stadium would probably have been sold for redevelopment by now.
However, a firm of civil engineers specialising in the construction of sporting venues have now come up with plans that would preclude the first team from facing up to five away games in a row.
A spokesman for the civil engineers commented: "it would be possible to accommodate both sports simultaneously. Whilst it would require a reduction in capacity, particularly in the London Stadium's lower tier, there is no reason why the running track and football pitch cannot exist at the same time.
"The Championships could start first thing in the morning with qualifying events, finishing up by 1pm. This would give the football teams time to warm up before kick-off at 3pm. Allowing for stoppage time, games usually finish around 5pm - leaving time for the finals to start around, say 6:30-7pm.
"The exception to the general rule would be the marathon, which, with careful planning, could be timed to finish during the half-time interval, thus replacing the current half-time interval 'Hammertime' quiz - though we appreciate that this will upset those involved in the long-term campaign to bring back 'Beat The Batak'.
A spokeswoman for UK Athletics, the sport’s governing body, gave the proposal a cautious welcome, though she did point out that some of the field events would need to be considered.
"The javelin, discus and shot-put would almost certainly be hosted elsewhere under the current proposals, but they pull in even smaller crowds than the track events - so somewhere reasonably close, like Tottenham Hostspur, could potentially host those particular events.
"Meanwhile, the long and triple jump competitions could continue on the touch line - and may well prove to be particularly useful as a time-filler during VAR delays”.
However a cautionary note was issued by key broadcaster Sky Sports, who pointed out that all timings and fixture dates would need to be subject to their usual approval process and that they would seek to negotiate a reduced broadcast fee, should they also be required to transmit any athletics given 'generally low audiences for anything without a genuine UK medal contender involved'."
West Ham United are yet to comment on the matter, although we anticipate some sort of announcement by midday today.
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