More free cash for Gold and Sullivan?
City AM have this week released an in-depth article on the Olympic Stadium contract, demonstrating that the taxpayer will receive far less from a future sale of West Ham to new owners, than had been implied by the LLDC and politicians. The article comes almost a year to the day when the BBC documentary “How the Hammers Struck Gold highlighted the murky terms of the deal. At the time, the LLDC were still resisting publication date of the full contract under the Freedom of Information law. The BBC’s Dan Roan highlighted the issue of what the taxpayer might get back from the sale as one of the still unclear issues on which transparency was needed.
Finally in May this year, an Information Tribunal ordered full release of the contract. It was a major success for the Olympic Stadium Coalition (of which CAS Trust is a founder member). This success finally allowed for the professionals in media outlets to study the contract in depth and get professional assessments of the various previously hidden clauses. We hope and believe that the City AM article is just the first of many which will show up the excessive burden on the taxpayer which the current contract imposes; and this in turn will increase the pressure on politicians to review the arrangements.
