England Rugby should buy London Stadium and flog Twickenham land
How do you solve a problem like increasing the revenues for England Rugby? Up sticks and buy the London Stadium, suggests Ollie Phillips
Given the obstacles being thrown towards Allianz Stadium and England Rugby from local residents relating to the number of concerts the home of rugby wants to stage, it is no surprise that some are discussing the long-term future of the sport in Twickenham.
Among the theories that have been thrown around, including some from England Rugby chief executive Bill Sweeney, are some which are simply wild.
There’s no way England should build a stadium in Birmingham given the reliance at Twickenham on the M3 and M4 corridor for fans, and mooted plans to go to Milton Keynes should be thrown into the bin and burnt.
England plans
Buying half of Wembley would actually be quite smart, and pooling cash from England football and rugby games could have produced a British sporting powerhouse.
But in the end it looks as if we will be redeveloping Allianz Stadium at great cost – more than £650m). And goodness does it need a lot of work. The seats are naff, getting a drink physically ages you, and overall a day out in Twickenham now falls so far behind many stadiums across London.
A refurbished Twickenham needs better seating and better configuration of the arena, but more importantly it needs a selling point.
Wembley has the capacity and range of ticket prices; Allianz Stadium cannot compete on the latter. Tottenham Hotspur has the value for money on premium regular seating; Allianz Stadium cannot compete on that either.
Crazy idea
My crazy idea? Buy the London Stadium from the Greater London Authority, develop it back to the London 2012 Olympic Games capacity of 80,000, and flog the land where Twickenham currently sits.
Actually, is that such a crazy idea after all? The arena is perfect for crowd control, a key source of angst for many Twickenham regulars, and is a striking sporting landmark with its own history in London.
We’ve seen Mo Farah win gold there and David Moyes go on a winning European cup run with West Ham United there, so why not a Marcus Smith drop goal in the 80th minute? After all, the London Stadium staged part of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
Look, no idea is perfect and this one will have its flaws, but Twickenham is such a drag on England Rugby at the moment and they cannot rely on the loyal and dedicated demographic who are filling the coffers – we’re all getting older and prices at Twickenham cannot go up any further without the experience getting exponentially better in return.
Run from Twickenham?
Renowned architects Populous are leading Twickenham’s redevelopment so I am sure whatever they come up with will be brilliant. But when there’s £650m going into this and you factor in the property portfolio that could be constructed on the site, you’ve got to wonder whether it is worth just cutting the losses and running elsewhere.
The relationship between West Ham United and the Greater London Authority has always been an uneasy one, and maybe rugby should capitalise on the opportunity to get in on the action over in east London.
Local residents appear to be mightily powerful in the future of revenue streams at Allianz Stadium, and no matter how noble the Rugby Football Union is in its efforts to appease the good people of Richmond upon Thames, I fear their attempts will fall on deaf ears.
So England should get radical and take the initiative in their desire to secure a long-term, modern, profitable future. Just don’t be so radical that the 2026 Autumn Internationals are staged at Stadium MK.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11