Subcontractor Owed £712,000 for Outdoor Seating Work Renovations On London’s Olympic Stadium

There’s more to a sporting event than the game being played on the field. Whether it’s indoor bleachers or weatherproof outdoor seating the fans in the crowd need a place to enjoy the competition. So when the 2015 Rugby World Cup was selected to be played London’s Olympic Stadium the owners of the complex wanted to add retractable outdoor seating to allow for better fan viewing. While they are in essence outdoor bleachers, that tends to be more of an American term that can be traced back to 1889.

All well and good except now Gallowglass, a U.K.-based global event services company, is in danger of going under if they don’t receive the payments they deserve and allege they never got, according to the event news source accessaa.co.uk.

Gallowglass director Nick Grecian told The Telegraph earlier this month that his company is still owed £712,000 for the work they did on the retractable outdoor seating in London’s Olympic Stadium. The stadium itself had a capacity of about 60,000 before the additional outdoor seating, more than the average baseball stadium of 47,000, but less than American football ones which hold 70,000.

“We’re between a rock and a hard place,” Grecian told The Telegraph. “We’ve got to take action now – because if we don’t deal with this straight away, we won’t survive.”

The issue at hand is that while the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) owns Olympic Stadium and is responsible for the work being done inside, they hired another contractor to do the work. Alto Seating was the company the LLDC claims to have already paid for the renovations to the outdoor seating space. Alto Seating then subcontracted other companies, including Gallowglass, to help with the project.

Even though the LLDC insists they paid Alto Seating, the comapny went into liquidation in late September.

“We’re somewhat mystified as to why Alto has gone into voluntary liquidation,” an LLDC spokeman told The Telegraph. “We have paid them in full and on time for the work they have completed. We absolutely recognize the appalling circumstances that these sub-contracting firms have been left in – it’s a disgraceful position, quite frankly.”

The two sides are working to come to an agreeable conclusion, although the LLDC has said they can’t afford to drop another £712,000 twice for the same work.