New owners of football club announce ambition to leave Upton Park for Olympic Stadium as part of plans to improve the club
The new owners of West Ham Football Club are seeking to move the club to a permanent home in the Olympic Stadium, they announced today.
Announcing a deal to take a 50% stake in the club, one of the owners, media magnate David Sullivan, said he wanted to move West Ham from its 35,000-capacity ground at Upton Park to the Olympic Stadium as part of his long-term plan to improve the club.
According to reports, Sullivan told journalists: “We plan to spend a lot of money and we hope to persuade the government to let us move to the new Olympic Stadium, and I believe the people of east London would support that move."
Sullivan’s plans may come as welcome news for the Olympic Park Legacy Company chaired by Margaret Ford, which has made no secret of its desire to look again at the long-term use proposed for the stadium.
Ford told Building in July last year that she would not rule out the idea of a premiership football club taking a place, and was looking again at the plan to reduce capacity from 80,000 to 25,000 after the games.
Sullivan and long-time business partner David Gold sold their stake in Birmingham City last year.
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