So its 2012 and the Olympic games have just finished in London. The best Olympic Games EVERRRRRRR, no doubt about that. Mainly because there’s never been another one I could get to with my Tube card and make it home in 40 minutes. And also because it was brilliant. All round, just brilliant.

Ok, that’s done. What do we do with the £14billion worth of ‘things’ we’ve built? We need ‘the legacy’, that vomitworthy term for working out how to make a financial disaster into… well, even just a little bit less of a financial disaster. At best.

So the swimming pool will become… a swimming pool! Who’d’a thought’a that? On its own the Legacy committee paid for itself with that one. The ‘Olympic Village’ can become much needed housing. Flats. Loads of them. Great.

Now what about the stadium. Built at a cost of 475 million quid, they referred to it today as ‘Coe’s folly’. As if it was Seb’s vanity and indulgence, when organising the games, and he ‘demanded’, like some petulant kid in a sweet shop, that we build a magnificent stadium, fit for… well, fit for the Olympic Games. If not his ‘folly’, what would they have done, scratched a few lines round the local park for Usain Bolt to run round? With 200 ‘fans’ who couldn’t see anything? No, you want the games you need the stadium.

Then what do you do with it afterwards? Hmmmmm. Unlike the Aquatic Centre, we have no need whatsoever for an immense athletic stadium that will never again host more than 47 people. And it costs a lot of money just to have it there and not let it go to ruin. A lot of money. Which taxpayers fund.

Local football club West Ham are actually looking for a new ground, having outgrown their old, shitty, grotty, scummy slum-dwelling. They need a ‘digital’ ground and Upton Park is well-analogue. They need a new, high-tec, bigger ground for when Port Vale visit them after the next relegation, bringing 277 fans with them.

But the stadium needs to be adapted for football. That running track won’t work. Puts too much distance between the fans and the action, reduces atmosphere to nothing, disaster. Never mind, for just another 272 million quid we can convert it to West Ham’s needs. Easy peasy (WHEN SOMEONE ELSE IS FUCKING PAYING!!!!). West Ham paid their fair share of these costs. Well, they paid £15 million. For a stadium now costing north of 700 mil. Fair’s fair.

The Hammers will pay rent though. Ahhh, that’s good news. Get some money back. Sort of.
They’ll pay 2.5 million a year in rent, BUT, the council will pay for heat and light, which costs… new lightbulbs… an extra radiator… which costs 2.5 million a year. What a result.

West Ham obtain the best stadium in the world for nothing (and 15 million quid is literally ‘nothing’ both to West Ham and in comparison to any other ‘new stadium’ option), for no rent, effectively and basically become the first team in the world to be ‘on state benefits’. Which is, you have to admit, the perfect image for that team.

However. Before we revile them too much, even though its one of my favourite hobbies, this deal is actually a very good one for the Legacy Committee and for Newham Council. Oddly. Because there will be payments. They’ll get a big share of the naming rights once someones found another UAE airline. They get a share of catering profits and other benefits, right up to a 1 million pound payment ‘when’ West Ham win the Champions League. Wouldn’t spend that too soon.

And there is nothing else to do with the stadium. It would otherwise just sit there. At least while costing West Ham zilch, which is morally repellant, it will not encumber the taxpayers any longer.

Karren Brady has just overtaken Dimitri Payet as West Ham’s finest player. Possibly ever (with apologies to the family of Bobby Moore).

Happy Friday

A xxxx