Reality check for UK Athletics

THERE were so many empty seats at the London Stadium this weekend (above), one could have been forgiven for thinking it was a West Ham game, and the opposition had scored. But it was something even more likely to get fans flooding to the exits: athletics. And not even good athletics, either.

The big names had pulled out of the fledgling World Cup, leaving a poor field. The official line is that crowds of 20,000-plus both days were relatively healthy for the sport — but not for us if taking into account the cost of stadium conversion.

If a crowd roughly the size of a Bristol City home game is considered decent, one wonders why UK Athletics are so insistent on commanding a 60,000- capacity arena, when it is plainly in need of retooling to suit the needs of its primary tenant, West Ham.

It is to be hoped the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham can resolve this issue. Athletics can then decamp to a purpose- built venue, West Ham — not the taxpayer — can pay for the remodelling needed to make the London Stadium feel like home, and the public can stop financing an annual conversion that exists primarily to salve the ego of Lord Coe and his cronies whose fault this is.