Seb Coe insists empty seats in Birmingham won’t harm London’s bid for 2029 worlds

Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, has played down suggestions that empty seats at the European championships could affect London’s bid for the 2029 worlds.

The sparse crowds earlier in the week in Birmingham have been one of the big talking points of the championships, with criticisms of the ticket prices and the marketing of the event, even though the last four days are close to a sellout.

However European Athletics have backed organisers and on Friday it also said expressed delight that the event was getting peak audiences “exceeding two million people” and a 20% market share on the BBC.

When Coe was asked about the empty seats and its potential impact on London’s bid, he quickly pointed out that the capital had shown repeatedly during the Olympics in 2012 and the world championships in 2017 that it does get full stadiums.

“It’s horses for courses,” he said. “We had London in 2012, London in 2017, London will point to having sold out Diamond League five months before the event took place … I think back to 2017 in London, we started on a Friday night and we had the advantage of Mo Farah being the centrepiece.”

Sebastian Coe said London had sold out events months in advance. Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP

Referring to Birmingham’s situation, Coe added: “I think it was a challenge. It’s always a challenge starting a championship on a Monday morning … local circumstances, middle of the summer, pretty hot out there, not a lot of covering in the stadium, I think there will be a whole series of things.”

Coe said he would not have a vote for the 2029 world championships, which will be taken next month. Instead an evaluation panel will give its recommendation to the World Athletics Council after using a series of metrics to evaluate the four cities involved – London, Munich, Nairobi and Rome – and they will decide.

“The council will hear the case, the evaluation panel will give a preference to the council,” said Coe. “It’s a pretty coherent process, and it takes the beauty parade element out of it, but it still gives the council the opportunity to properly interrogate beyond the work of the evaluation.”