Hearn: 2012 Olympic Stadium “biggest waste of money I’ve ever seen” 02/03/2010
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Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn has labelled the 2012 Olympic Stadium a “disaster” and predicted that it will be demolished after the London Games.
Hearn had been in talks about moving Orient into a reduced-capacity version of the stadium after the Olympics, but has now ruled out that possibility because 2012 officials are insisting that the running track has to remain.
"The Olympic Stadium is the biggest disaster and waste of public money I have ever seen," said Hearn, who is also chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation and World Snooker.
"The day after the Olympics has finished and the grass starts growing in the seats, that stadium is not sustainable.
"The slant of the seats is all wrong for football. There is an athletics track, a warm-up track and long jump pit, so the fans will be miles away and any football fan will tell you that is what kills the atmosphere.
"I was talking to them seriously for three years about moving in to the stadium it if it was going to be 25,000. But I said ‘don't build something where my fans would go, ‘oh thanks a lot, we used to have a proper football ground and now we have got this'.
"And who goes to watch athletics? You watch it during the Olympics and then you will be lucky to get 500 people at the Don Valley stadium the rest of the time.
"They are going to be left with a stadium that is not useable – a great opportunity thrown away. They will knock it down. That is the only choice they will have."
New West Ham owners David Sullivan and David Gold are also keen to move into the stadium after the 2012 Games, but Hearn doubts it will happen.
"West Ham was the logical choice if they had built a proper 80,000-seater stadium," added Hearn. "But it will be built with 55,000 temporary seats, with temporary toilets and temporary bars, so it cannot be used anyway.
"I've spoken to David Sullivan about it and he said he had not looked at the plans yet but he liked the idea of West Ham playing there. I told him that when he looked into it, he would see that it could not be done.
"They could put the hydraulics in to change the seating when the Olympics is done but they said they did not want to spend the extra money.
"They have spent £540m on the stadium and they did not want to spend the extra million or so to build it properly.
"Tower Hamlets School against Shoreditch Boys Grammar – that is the only football that will be played there, in front of 25,000 empty seats."
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