Sir Rodney in the wings as Bates is cast to the margins

Ken Bates will step down as the chairman of the battered Wembley Stadium project this week and could be replaced by one of sport's most seasoned troubleshooters, Sir Rodney Walker.

Ken Bates will step down as the chairman of the battered Wembley Stadium project this week and could be replaced by one of sport's most seasoned troubleshooters, Sir Rodney Walker.

The hand-over, which in real terms is actually more of a takeover, is set to take place at a Football Association board meeting on Thursday. It is believed that 69-year-old Bates, despite his assertion that he received unanimous backing from the FA after they decided to take control of the stadium reconstruction out of his hands, has already agreed to his removal as chairman, though he may remain on the board of Wembley National Stadium Ltd, an FA subsidiary.

The move is the culmination of months of aggravation over Wembley and the escalating costs, topping £600m ,which city bankers have declined to meet. The FA are now trying to effect a face-saving formula that would allow Bates, architect in all but name of the project which has become something of a Dome-sized disaster area, to go quietly.

The man favoured to replace him is 57-year-old Sir Rodney, the former rugby league forward and Yorkshire shot-put champion who has a reputation for "kicking backsides". The former sports minmister, Tony Banks, describes him as "a real toughie".

He already sits on the WNSL board but the one obstacle to his elevation is a time-consuming portfolio which embraces running the government-backed umbrella body UK Sport, the Rugby League and Brands Hatch, as well as about a dozen businesses. He is also the chairman of Leicester City plc and this time last year was being talked-of as a possible future chairman of the FA itself.

Other potential contenders to take over from Bates include Clive Sherling, the chairman of the Football Licensing Authority, Sir Roland Smith, the chairman of Manchester United plc, and the former police chief Sir John Smith.

But a majority of FA councillors see "strong man" Sir Rodney as the ideal Wembley figurehead. He is popular and well-contacted with government ministers, and in 1975 was the chairman of the old GB Sports Council when the decision to redesign Wembley was first taken. He has always been an advocate of Wembley becoming an all-purpose stadium, incorporating an athletics track.

It is thought that after new discussions with the sports minister, Kate Hoey, the FA's chairman Geoff Thompson and the chief executive Adam Crozier are now in favour of a return to the original built-in track idea, with retractable seating as in Paris's muchadmired Stade de France. This would allow the financially-ravaged project to retain the £20m Lottery funding it had to forfeit when athletics was finally excluded, with the possibility of receiving a little extra should the proposed site of a new athletics venue at Picketts Lock in North London not prove viable.

It is the growing possibility of athletics getting back on track at Wembley which makes Bates's position untenable, especially as he wrote defiantly in his tabloid newspaper column last week: "There will be no down-sizing, no sharing of the facility with athletics." After so many bitter battles, he has clearly lost his war.

There has to be some uncomfortable fidgeting, too, at Sport England, who meekly complied with Bates' grandoise pie-in-the-sky plans for an overpriced football-only Superdome.Yet, astonishly, there are still factions who want to revive the discredited idea of a temporary platfom track for the world athletics championships.

At the moment these remain scheduled in 2005, for Picketts Lock and at least one senior athletics figure remains hopeful that they will go ahead. "Whatever happens athletics needs a legacy stadium," says the former Olympic medallist Alan Pascoe, now the sport's principal promoter through his company Fast Track.

"Irrespective of what is going on at Wembley what the sport must have is a stadium with a retrtactable roof for major international meetings because the days are gone when you can rely on the summer. You can't have Grand Prix meetings worth millions being washed away. It would also enable our athletes to train year-round in ideal conditions."

However, thanks to the government's post-Olympics realisation that there are far more successful sports beyond the football field, the probabililty is that the world athletics championships will now be staged at Wembley in a stadium that will also be the basis of any future Olympic bid.

The problem of a warm-up track is not insurmountable but if neither this nor Picketts Lock proves the suitable centre of excellence athletics desires, then this could be built at a re-vamped Crystal Palace, a plan which I understand is under renewed consideration.

Meanwhile, the Wembley ship, which was looking like sport's Titanic, seems about to anchor in less troubled waters, especially if the new man at the helm turns out to be a Rodney who can sort out the Del boys.