Reigning world indoor 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson is among Manchester United’s high-profile fans in other sports
Olympic champion and Manchester United supporter Keely Hodgkinson has taken a pop at West Ham United over a stadium dispute. The Hammers play at the London Stadium, site of the athletics portion of the 2012 Olympics, with their stewardship reportedly standing in the way of the UK’s hopes of hosting the World Championships.
The worlds could return to Europe in 2029 after back-to-back championships in Asia. Tokyo hosted the 2025 edition, while it will go to Beijing next year.
However, this could be scuppered by the Hammers’ reluctance to allow their stadium to be used for athletics during the football season. The World Championships have been held in September in recent years, potentially clashing with the London club’s league and cup commitments.
Hodgkinson, who recently won 800m gold at the World Indoor Championships in Poland, joked about the relative successes of Team GB and West Ham when commenting on the matter on social media. “The GB team will bring back more medals to that stadium than West Ham have seen in their entire history,” the 24-year-old wrote.
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Hodgkinson’s response got a mixed reception, with one suggesting she was “going in Marco Boogers style” – a reference to a West Ham striker famously shown a red card against United. “As a West Ham fan I am deeply offended by the truth in your comment,” joked another.
Not all of the comments were positive, though. “Show some respect to West Ham which is a fine institution with the decent folk who support them. Cheap laugh and not a good look,” one football fan wrote.
“Not sure what your point is? West Ham have every right to say no,” wrote another.
West Ham moved into the London Stadium in 2016, four years after the London Olympics. The stadium hosted the World Championships in 2017, with the competition held in early August and not clashing with the football season, though IAAF president Sebastian Coe played down suggestions the World Championships could be moved to earlier in the year in 2019.
“I can’t speculate about that. That would then be a council judgment. We have a pretty clear, stated position that we want our world championships to finish as the conclusion of a season,” he said, per The Guardian “Why did we do that? Well, the reason is that, for a lot of our fans, it was confusing.
“They didn’t quite know why somebody would come out of a world championships or an Olympic Games and then go: ‘OK, I know they won whatever it is, in the world championships, and then four days later they’re in the Diamond League final.’ And particularly when you have a very cluttered sporting calendar across winter and summer sports, we just felt we needed to do everything just to make our sport a little more understandable.”
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