West Ham will pay extra £450,000 per season if they increase capacity to 66,000

By Simon StoneBBC Sport
West Ham's London Stadium
West Ham pay an annual rent of £3m for London Stadium, which was built to host the 2012 Olympics

West Ham have agreed to pay almost £450,000 extra per season to use London Stadium if the capacity is raised to 66,000.

The figure was revealed in a joint letter from West Ham and the stadium's operators E20 to the London Assembly.

That letter outlined the detail of the 'peace' deal that was agreed by the two parties in November.

The deal was reached minutes before a potentially costly court case, lasting up to six weeks, was set to start.

Under the agreement, London Stadium's capacity will initially rise from 57,000 to 60,000, with the club hopeful that extra space will be ready for the Premier League game against Brighton on 2 January.

After months of arguing, the two parties, led by Hammers vice-chairman Karren Brady and E20 chief executive Lyn Garner, have established a more productive working relationship.

In the detail of the new agreement, West Ham will not pay any extra rent beyond their current £3m annual fee as long as the stadium capacity does not exceed 57,000.

However, if the capacity is 60,000, West Ham will pay another £250,000 annually. They would then pay a further £83,000 to take the capacity to 62,500 and around £33 per seat after that, which adds up to £448,500.

It is understood, in the short term at least, West Ham are likely to keep the capacity at 60,000.

West Ham will also pay for any licensing, planning and physical improvement costs in increasing the capacity.

The club must let E20 know by 1 June each year what they want the capacity to be.

Brady and Garner say they are "fully committed to making the London Stadium the jewel in London's crown" while the agreement has been welcomed by Gareth Bacon, chairman of the London Assembly's budget and performance committee.

He said: "We are pleased that peace has broken out between the London Stadium's key players.

"It made no sense for more taxpayers' money to be squandered on legal costs to break the deadlock."

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