Following all the issues experienced inside the London Stadium against Watford on Saturday, one of the biggest talking points was the decision not to have a single police officer on duty inside the ground.
Unlike the Boleyn Ground, where there were hundreds of officers clearly in sight of the crowd, the London Stadium is only governed by sub-standard, inexperienced and generally awful security officers and stewards.
Such a decision has been attributed to the violence we have witnessed in our first games at the new stadium.
Following on from the worst of the issues from Saturday, the club have admitted they have insisted stadium owners E20 allow the presence of law enforcement inside the ground during every match – good news and hopefully the beginning of the end to all the problems.
However, according to Sky Sports News HQ’s Rebecca Williams, there will remain no police presence inside the stadium on matchdays until a sufficient radio system is installed…
There will be no police inside West Ham stadium during next match as there's no satisfactory radio system in place @SkySportsNewsHQ
— Rebecca Williams 📺 (@RebeccaTVnews) September 13, 2016
This highlights yet another flaw in the redevelopment of the stadium since the London Olympic Games and suggests the issues we’ve all witnessed inside the stadium since the migration from the Boleyn Ground could get worse before they get better.
Of course, fans are as much to blame as anyone else in the trouble and violence in the stands since the beginning of the season, but you have to wonder what on earth E20 were thinking by not installing such a crucial piece of technology into an arena designed to hold at least 60,000 people, and eventually 66,000.
And according to Sky Sports News HQ’s Bryan Swanson, this issue was raised way back in 2014 but the stadium operators have clearly not done anything about it until recently, with Swanson reporting that they have only recently agreed to have one installed…
https://twitter.com/skysports_bryan/status/775651085713338368
Incredible. Had the stadium operators actually done their jobs perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess right now?
