Fighting talk over Olympic Stadium legacy

Alan Pascoe, the hurdler-turned-promoter, says Spurs' plans for the site 'betray the 2012 bid and our children's future'

(FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA)

It is all kicking off in the fight to inherit London's 2012 Olympic Stadium once the flame has been extinguished 18 months from now. Not so much hammer and tongs as Hammers and Spurs as the Premier League rivals go head to head in a bitter game of political football. Athletics is outraged by what local club West Ham's vice-chairman Karren Brady calls a "smash and grab" raid by Tottenham, who have confirmed they would bulldoze the £500 million, 85,000-seater stadium and build on the site a 60,000-capacity football-only facility; thereby leaving those who bid for the Games terminally embarrassed at seeing the Olympic legacy they had promised to secure being cynically betrayed.

West Ham, happy to retain the track and share what would become a multi-sports stadium with athletics, are afraid that the Tottenham bid, backed by US partners AEG who own the O2, will be seen as a better financial deal by the Olympic Park Legacy Board. The board are due to declare their preferred bidder this month – with a final decision made in conjunction with the Government and London mayor in March. It is set to become the most vexed sporting issue of 2011 and one prominent sports figure believes it will be critical to the future of international sport in Britain.

Former Olympian Alan Pascoe is calling on Prime Minister David Cameron and London's mayor Boris Johnson to intervene and prevent a Tottenham win which, he claims, would be catastrophic. "We made a pledge when we got the Games that there would be a legacy in the Olympic Park for athletics. If we go back on that, why should anyone ever believe us again when we bid for future major events? We'd be told, 'But you don't keep your word'."

Pascoe, 63, winner of Olympic silver and European and Commonwealth gold medals, who has risen from council house schoolboy, hard-up hurdler and one-time rebellious shop steward of athletics in the Seventies to become Britain's most successful sports marketeer as head of the international promotional organisation Fast Track, is among many infuriated by Tottenham's tactics.

"It is a disgrace that this situation is even being considered," he said. "If you drew up a list of the benefits of the Tottenham bid, the only thing in the plus column would be saving £100m for the money men at Spurs, against, on the other side, a multi-sports stadium that is there with facilities for all the young people and the community of East London.

"Spending half a billion pounds on building a stadium for 12 months, using it for less than a month and then knocking it down would make us a laughing stock. The commitment that was made – and I was part of it as [2012] bid vice-chairman – brilliantly fronted by Seb Coe and supported by all the team in Singapore – some of whom are in the Tottenham camp now – was that we would have an Olympic stadium with a proper legacy. Bear in mind we took kids to Singapore to show our commitment to this.

"Either the Prime Minister or the mayor, or both, have got to step in now and stop this happening. If it was just about money, we shouldn't have bid for the Games in the first place, but it is actually about a huge investment in the East End of London, the infrastructure of a sport in this country and its entire credibility."

With apparently only the Tottenham board wanting a contentious five-mile move from north to east London, theirs is hardly a cause célèbre. That is why, with supreme irony, last week they recruited Mike Lee, arguably the most consummate spinner since Shane Warne and himself a former West Ham director who, as the 2012 bid's communications chief, was instrumental in persuading the International Olympic Committee, hand on heart, that London's Olympic Park would have an athletics legacy. Presumably he is now paid to show that it doesn't actually need one.

"We are heading for a national embarrassment," Pascoe forecasts. "Tottenham are paying a lot of money to put themselves in pole position purely because it is a better deal financially for that piece of land. It shouldn't be about money, it should be about what we are committed to for the benefit of sport. Nine years ago we were lamenting the fact that we'd won the World Athletics Championships and then had to give it back as we wouldn't have a stadium because of the Picketts Lock fiasco. Tony Blair committed us to the championships in writing. I found it hard to believe then that sport could be stabbed in the back so cold-bloodedly. Now here we are again."

But what of Spurs' offer to tart up Crystal Palace, thus providing London with a potentially world-class athletics arena? "That's a different discussion. Yes, a renovation of the Palace would be good for British sport, but we are talking about the iconic Olympic stadium being reduced to rubble having made a commitment to the world of sport that we'd use that stadium to create a legacy. If they are going to rebuild Crystal Palace, OK, it's equally ludicrous, but why don't Spurs go there? Spurs fans don't want to move to Newham and the local community and local businesses and shopkeepers say they will be devastated. I feel sorry for Seb. Given the position he is in, he has made it as clear as possible he favours the West Ham bid. People should be saying: 'We can't allow this to happen to the people who led the bid, to the commitment we made and to our foremost sports politician, someone who has total credibility worldwide."

Karren Brady has described Tottenham's current romancing of David Beckham as "a cynical ploy" to boost their bid. Says Pascoe: "If this is the case, I would hope that David, as someone who has benefited from the sporting infrastructure of this country and was part of our bid team in Singapore, won't get involved."

And what of Sir Keith Mills, Coe's vice-chair at the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, who was a key player in the 2012 bid but is now a Tottenham director? "Keith is in an invidious position but he is an honourable man. I hope he'd take a backward step in all this."

And Mike Lee? "Mike is the ultimate pro, a hired gun. But I find it strange he is now lining up against Seb when he was spinning for him in the 2012 bid. Yet no amount of spin can get away from the fact that this is about the money men of Spurs against the kids of this country.

"At a time when we are looking to bid for big events and have just had such a disappointing attempt at getting the World Cup, with Fifa's credibility called into question, not least by us, why are we going to go back on our commitments? Surely our Olympic Stadium is worth more than just 40 days' football and a few pop concerts a year?"

"Alan's a real striver, he never gives up," Pascoe's old hurdling rival David Hemery once said. Tottenham should take note before they start up the bulldozers.