Gold believes Hammers need a new home in order to progress as a club

West Ham co-chairman David Gold has categorically ruled out developing the Hammers’ Boleyn Ground, even if the club loses its bid to move into the Olympic Stadium.

The Championship outfit were awarded the Olympic Stadium earlier in the year, only for those plans to be scrapped following legal challenges from Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient as well as an anonymous complaint to the European Commission.

However, speaking earlier today, Gold confirmed that the Hammers will not stay at their Boleyn Ground home.

“I am ruling out redeveloping the Boleyn,” said Gold.

“You can’t develop the Boleyn. You will be pouting money down the drain.

“The issue at the Boleyn is not the capacity, the issue is the area around it, the facilities around it.

“Access around it is impossible. We have got to do something. What we can’t do is nothing.”

The Hammers co-owner also revealed that he believes that the club need to move to a new home, if they are to progress and be able to challenge in the Premier League.

“West Ham have been at the Boleyn for over a 100 years,” he said.

“They are the eighth largest supported football club in the country, I believe, and yet we don’t perform like the eighth biggest.

“We perform like the 20th biggest. And that’s because we are at the Boleyn, I believe. We have to change that.

“We came back into West Ham believing that we can transform that whole concept and get West Ham challenging at the highest level of the Premier League.

“That will mean some form of change and the one everyone is looking at is the Olympic Stadium.”