Hammers move to Olympic Stadium ruled out
West Ham's chances of moving into London's Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games appear to have been dashed by Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell.
The club was considering a move from their Upton Park home but Jowell has reportedly told Hammers chiefs they would need to come up with £100m (€150m).
That figure has been produced as the stadium has not been designed for football use and Jowell is keen to honour the agreement with the International Olympic Committee to provide a lasting legacy for athletics.
According to The Sunday Telegraph Jowell met with West Ham chairman Terence Brown and managing director Paul Aldridge to inform them about the £100m price tag to cover the extra cost of building a dual-use stadium.
"They said they would obviously not be interested on that basis," Jowell told the Telegraph.
"When we were going through the first stage of the cost review and looking at the various options on legacy costs, we discovered that football would actually be much more expensive because we are absolutely bound to provide an athletics legacy and running a parallel procurement is very, very expensive.
"Not only are we bound by what we were told by the IOC but we are bound by a belief in the importance of there being an athletics legacy.
"So football was really knocked out at that point."
