West Ham’s Karren Brady told by London mayor to withdraw claim of budget cuts

• Vice-chairman wrote to Sadiq Khan blaming the stadium owner
• Monday meeting followed serious crowd trouble in loss to Burnley

Sadiq Khan has rebuked Karren Brady for claiming that cuts in the London Stadium’s security budget were responsible for the crowd trouble that marred West Ham United’s defeat by Burnley last Saturday.

West Ham’s vice-chairman wrote to the mayor of London after an emergency meeting between stakeholders on Monday and said David Sadler, the head of safety and security at the stadium operator LS185, had blamed failings in security on the stadium’s owner E20 pushing for cuts of more than 15% over the past six months. Brady, who was not at the meeting, quoted Sadler as saying that LS185 had secured the stadium as best it could “with the limited resources available”.

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