London Stadium should be ‘torn down’ says former chairman

Former West Ham chairman Eggert Magnusson claims the London Stadium is not fit for football, and has a drastic solution.

Magnusson, who was chairman of the Hammers from 2006 to 2007, believes that the design of the stadium is fundamental to the issues the Hammers have faced this season.

He said: “You cannot build an Olympic stadium and then make it a football stadium.

“You begin with football in mind. We had plans and costings for a stadium with retractable seats, like the Stade de France.

“Upton Park had a special atmosphere and you want fans to hear tackles and what the managers are saying. What we have now is a mess.”

West Ham have seen several instances of crowd trouble to start their life at the new stadium, but it is not just the fans that have lost out according to Magnusson.

“The stadium is simply unfit for football. It’s a coliseum for athletics — you have people 40 metres from the pitch, moving to concourses so they can see.”

“You have big open spaces outside, which are very difficult to police, and rival fans sharing concourses inside. The seats are very slow and expensive to move as they were an after-thought. I really feel sorry for the fans.

The solution? Well, Magnusson has a rather extreme way of fixing the problem, although it might not go down to well with the club heirachy.

“I don’t think anything can be done now. It’s better for it to be torn down and started from scratch.”