It is far from a done deal yet but West Ham are attempting to bring Italian side Lazio over to London Stadium in August for a pre-season friendly in E20, football.london understands.
The Hammers had the Serie A side on their list of potential opponents for a final friendly ahead of the 2019/20 Premier League season along with Paris St Germain, Monaco, Lyon and Sevilla but they have seemingly settled on Lazio.
The Italian side and the Hammers have enjoyed a fruitful friendship over the years, mainly among the respective fanbases, but the Londoners did also take Felipe Anderson off Lazio's hands in the summer for a fee that will rise to £42m.
If the club can strike a deal to bring Lazio over to London, with the club having earmarked August 3 for the game, then it will be the first pre-season friendly at London Stadium since the official opening of the stadium as a football ground when Juventus came over for the Betway Cup in 2016.
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Should the Lazio game be confirmed, adult tickets for the match would start at £15, rising to £35 for the best seats while kids tickets would cost just a fiver.
The Hammers have finished their home campaign for 2018/19 with a 3-0 win over Southampton on Saturday and work has already begun on transforming the arena for the Major League Baseball games between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, which will take place on June 29 and 30.
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The Anniversary Games athletics at the London Stadium are also due to take place on July 20 and 21 but stadium owners E20 legally have to hand over control of the arena to West Ham by the end of July so they will have time to host a friendly seven days before the season gets underway.
Officially, it takes workers between a week and two weeks to transform the stadium from athletics mode back to football mode in preparation for the new season though we understand that it can be done in as little as five days.
Only the seating in the north and south stands needs to be fully removed and re-installed whereas in the east and west stand, it's just the first seven rows and at a cost of £4m.
Any new friendly in the summer also falls outside of the Hammers current concession agreement with the stadium owners E20 for their 25 days of use per season. That means it would cost the club anywhere between £300,000 and £500,000 just to effectively hire the stadium for the day.
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West Ham have already confirmed they will be heading to China for part of pre-season as they will be taking part in the Premier League Asia Trophy alongside Newcastle, Wolves and Manchester City with games in Nanjing and Shanghai. Matches are set to take place on July 17 in Nanjing and in Shanghai on the 20th.
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