The London Stadium has had a troubled first season as a venue for football. Photograph: James Griffiths/West Ham United via Getty Images
Telecoms giant Vodafone has confirmed that it has abandoned plans to sponsor the London Stadium in a £20m deal, dealing the latest blow to its troubled conversion to West Ham United’s home.
The company was believed to be on the verge of a six-year deal to take on the naming rights for the stadium, several years after London Legacy Development Corporation, the publicly funded joint venture that owns the stadium, began looking for potential partners.
But talks have now broken down and Vodafone has confirmed that it will not be proceeding with the deal. Sources insisted the breakdown in talks was over the terms of the deal and nothing to with an ongoing HMRC investigation that included the seizing of material from West Ham.
Under its lease to use the London Stadium, for which it pays a basic rate of £2.5m in rent per year, West Ham is due to receive 40% of E20’s naming rights revenue over £4m a year.
The naming rights deal is seen as crucial to making the complex sums around the taxpayer-funded stadium add up. Talks with the Indian conglomerate Mahindra collapsed last year amid differences over the value of the naming rights.
The stadium has had a controversial first season as a Premier League venue, with crowd trouble during early matches due to problems over relocation and segregation, and underwhelming performances from the team on the pitch. Fans have also complained about a lack of atmosphere and some seats being too far away from the pitch.
Building the stadium for the London 2012 Olympics and making it suitable for football has now cost more than £750m, after the cost of the conversion soared to £323m.
The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, last year ordered an inquiry when new problems with the retractable seats, which added millions more to the bill, came to light.
- The Guardian