Khan Opens the Door: City Hall Would Consider Selling the London Stadium to West Ham

The Mayor of London has publicly opened the door to selling the London Stadium to West Ham United, telling City Hall he “would consider any credible proposal” for the publicly funded venue in a letter responding to a Labour assembly member’s call for a sale. The letter, seen by City AM, is the clearest signal yet from Sadiq Khan’s office that the days of the Greater London Authority absorbing the stadium’s roughly £19 million in annual losses may be negotiable — provided a buyer protects taxpayers and the venue’s wider public role.

A “disastrous” deal for the public purse

The pressure came from Bassam Mahfouz, the Labour London Assembly member for Ealing and Hillingdon, who wrote to Khan urging him to explore a sale of the former Olympic Stadium. The venue is operated by London Stadium LLP, wholly owned by the Greater London Authority, so its losses of about £19 million a year ultimately fall on the public purse. Mahfouz told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the arrangement had proved “disastrous” for taxpayers, and that the 99-year concession agreement struck with West Ham in 2013 — under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty — cannot simply be renegotiated.

Whilst the onerous contract is not something that can be amended, a new way forward is possible if it were to be made redundant.— Bassam Mahfouz, Labour London Assembly member, in a letter to the Mayor of London, September 2026

The assembly member also highlighted structural barriers baked into the tenancy: West Ham hold a veto over naming rights, which has scuppered stadium sponsorship deals in the past, and the club has, in his words, “very little incentive” to agree to more mid-season concerts that would help the operator’s bottom line.

Khan sets his conditions

In his written reply, Khan said the mayor had “had to make the best of a challenging contractual position inherited from the previous Mayor”, and set out the tests any bid would have to clear: value for taxpayers, protection of the public interest, and preservation of the venue’s economic, social and sporting benefits — including its role as an athletics venue. City AM reported that Khan also pointed to recent improvements in relations between the club and the GLA-owned operator, an apparent nod to Daniel Křetínský’s growing influence at West Ham and the departure of former chairman David Sullivan from the board.

The burden should not fall indefinitely on taxpayers. If there is any credible proposal that protects the stadium’s future and gives Londoners better value for money, we should be prepared to explore it.— Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, in a letter to the London Assembly, September 2026

West Ham in no rush

Whether West Ham want to walk through that door is another question. The club declined to comment when the sale idea first surfaced, and subsequent reports citing club insiders suggest the new-look board is lukewarm about taking on a venue that costs its current owners roughly £19 million a year to run. The arithmetic of tenancy currently favours the club: after relegation to the Championship, West Ham’s rent under the 99-year deal has dropped to as little as £2.5 million annually — from the £4.6 million they paid in the Premier League — while the operator remains responsible for stewarding, policing and pitch maintenance.

For supporters who have long dreamed of owning and redeveloping the Stratford ground — a prospect that reportedly featured in Amanda Staveley’s failed bid for the club — Khan’s letter is the first time City Hall has set out, in public, the conditions under which a sale would be entertained. No bid has been submitted, no valuation has been made public, and any transfer would need to address the stadium’s commitments to athletics and community use. But for the first time since West Ham moved in a decade ago, the question is no longer whether the mayor would listen — it is whether the club can make an offer he cannot refuse.

Reporting by Ines Kovač, OneLightScore football business and governance correspondent, drawing on Sadiq Khan’s letter to the London Assembly as reported by City AM, BBC News, the Local Democracy Reporting Service via the Evening Standard, and West Ham-focused outlets. Cover image: “West Ham London Stadium Panorama” via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 2.0.