The 2.5 Million Reasons Why Arsenal, Chelsea Fans Are Rooting for Tottenham’s Relegation

Before even taking club rivalries into consideration, local fans of Arsenal, Chelsea and any London team apart from Tottenham Hotspur have been urged to support West Ham United in their battle against Premier League relegation by the capital’s mayor Sir Sadiq Khan.

As Khan pointed out, the taxpayers of the entire city stand to face a cumulative bill of an extra £2.5 million ($3.4 million) should West Ham get relegated due the added costs of their London Stadium hosting Championship fixtures.

With two games of the campaign remaining, the Premier League relegation battle has boiled down to a two-way duel between Spurs and West Ham. While the cost of demotion for Tottenham could exceed $300 million for the club’s billionaire owners, a drop out of the division for the Hammers would hurt the pocket of regular Londoners, according to Khan.

“What I’d say to Londoners who don’t support Spurs is you should probably be cheering on West Ham,” the mayor, who was convinced to support Liverpool after being subjected to racist abuse by fans of multiple capital clubs during his youth, told The Standard.

“The previous mayor, Boris Johnson, did the worst deal that can be imaginable,” Khan explained when referring to the agreement struck between West Ham and the government to rent out the London Stadium in 2016.

“As far as West Ham are concerned, [it’s] a deal of the century where he basically gave them rent free, this amazing stadium for 100 years. Now if West Ham are relegated, we, the taxpayers, we City Hall, could lose up to £2.5 million a year.

“So what I say to Londoners who don’t support Spurs is you should probably be cheering on West Ham, because the taxpayer will lose out if West Ham go down.”

The Numbers Behind West Ham’s Potential Relegation

West Ham’s home ground, formerly known as the Olympic Stadium which was opened for the summer Games in 2012, is owned by the Greater London Authority (GLA), which is the responsibility of mayor Khan.

In the deal brokered by Boris Johnson—a fact that Khan was keen to get across given he sits on the opposite side of the political divide—West Ham pay £4.4 million per year to rent the stadium, with the rest of the costs to host each fixture taken up by GLA, i.e. the London taxpayer.

Labour assembly member Bassam Mahfouz revealed to The Standard earlier this season that West Ham’s rent will halve should they drop into the Championship—that’s already £2.2 million off the table. Furthermore, there are 23 home fixtures for clubs in England’s second tier compared to 19 in the Premier League, forcing the expenditure which goes on the likes of stewarding to rise.

“It’s a financial fiasco so badly negotiated it could only be described as an own goal,” Mahfouz seethed.

The individual cost for each taxpayer amounts to less than 50 pence—a figure which doesn’t quite grab the attention like £2.5 million. However, it is a very real problem for the government, who warned that they “would need to find additional support” to plug this yawning hole in the budget.

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