​Leyton Orient chairman Hearn brands Olympic Stadium untenable

Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn has slammed London 2012 organisers, insisting the £500m Olympic Stadium will be untenable after the Games has finished.

The outspoken sports promoter admitted he had been in talks about moving Orient into the stadium but with Locog insisting the athletics track will remain after the Games, Hearn turned his back on the idea.

The stadium has become a focal point of London 2012 organisers' legacy plans with chairman Lord Sebastian Coe adamant the venue must keep its capacity to stage track and field events.

And while the initial intention was to reduce the stadium's capacity to approximately 25,000 with its primary purpose to be athletics, Mayor of London Boris Johnson has admitted he wants the stadium maintained at its full size for potentially lucrative events, such as the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Meanwhile, new West Ham United owners David Gold and David Sullivan have recently stated their intentions to become tenants and the stadium has also been named on the shortlist for England's 2018 World Cup bid.

But Hearn has laughed off the idea of using the stadium as a football venue and suggested a lack of interest in athletics events in this country would lead to the stadium ultimately being demolished.

"The Olympic Stadium is the biggest disaster and waste of public money I have ever seen," said Hearn, also chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation and World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.

"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."

The Olympic Park Legacy Company [OPLC], who will have the final say on the use of the stadium, have admitted they are wary of the 2012 venues becoming white elephants and are due to reach a settled position by the end of the next financial year - March 2011.

"The company has been very focused to secure the best possible use for the Olympic Stadium after the Games," read an OPLC statement.

"We have been examining all options which will both secure the financial viability and significant public investment in the stadium, coupled with making sure that legacy promises are fulfilled.

"It is very encouraging that there is great interest and enthusiasm in the future use for the stadium.

"We are perfectly clear that the future of this valuable public asset is secured in a way which allows the best opportunities to come forward and at the same time offer the best value for money for the public purse.

"In the coming months, we will put in a place a process which will allow appropriate uses for the stadium to be brought forward, which we will then evaluate against a set of criteria prior to the Board of OPLC making recommendations to the Mayor and Ministers.

"We aim to complete this process and reach a settled position by the end of the next financial year."

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell has recently poured cold water on West Ham's plans, insisting the stadium must be first and foremost for athletics, and remains keen to see the stadium reduced in size, wary of the £176 million it could cost to maintain at Olympics capacity until 2018.

But downsizing to 25,000 seats would end West Ham's interest and also rule the Olympic Stadium out of the running to be one of the host venues for the World Cup, which requires venues to have a capacity of 40,000.

And while a compromise of approximately 50,000 has also been proposed, Hearn is adamant the stadium will remain at 25,000.

"West Ham was the logical choice if they had built a proper 80,000-seater stadium," said 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, played in front 25,000 empty seats."

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