Sir Clive Woodward, the architect of England's triumph at the 2003 World Cup, will not be returning to Twickenham as the Rugby Football Union's performance director ahead of the forthcoming global gathering in New Zealand – or, it now seems likely, at any point before the 2015 tournament, which will be staged on these shores. Woodward's decision to continue his work with the British Olympic Association, confirmed yesterday after a week of embarrassing RFU infighting, leaves the governing body looking less like a tight-knit group of ambitious forward-thinkers than a laughably dysfunctional coalition of the defeated.

World Cup winner Sir Clive Woodward tonight left his Twickenham supporters reeling after ruling himself out of a possible return to English rugby's corridors of power.

Andy Anson, the former chief executive of England's unsuccessful bid for the 2018 football World Cup, has been announced as one of two new independent directors of the British Olympic Association.

There is, just about, a difference between the Rugby Football Union and Fred Karno's Army, but only in the sense that the latter deliberately set out to be funny. Yesterday, the governing body's management board – which, to the best of anyone's knowledge, has never included either Charlie Chaplin or Stan Laurel, although rumours to the contrary continue to circulate – forced their chief executive, John Steele, into a humiliating U-turn on the sensitive subject of the Twickenham performance directorship. As a consequence, the union was left looking every bit as daft as it did during the civil wars of the mid-1990s.

The proposed superfight between David Haye and Wladimir Klitschko may still be in doubt.

The Rugby Football Union will this week accelerate its move to reinstall Sir Clive Woodward, coach of the 2003 World Cup-winning team, at the top of the English game, despite considerable resistance from members of the governing body's ruling council. Many Twickenham backwoodsmen resent Woodward for the outspoken manner of his departure from the union in 2004, regard him as "uncontrollable", and fail to see how he can work alongside Rob Andrew, who beat him to a high-profile RFU position a little under five years ago and recently accepted the newly-created job of director of rugby operations. There is little love lost between the two men.

Britain's two major Olympic bodies have settled the financial dispute which had threatened to overshadow preparations for the 2012 London Games.

The "embarrassing" cash dispute that was threatening to overshadow the London 2012 Olympics has been resolved.

The first peace talks have taken place between the British Olympic Association (BOA) and London 2012 organisers to resolve their cash dispute.

The International Olympic Committee yesterday welcomed the announcement of peace talks in the bitter dispute between the British Olympic Association and London 2012 organisers. The BOA has suspended its legal action against London 2012 and will put a new proposal on the table later this week.

The British Olympic Association today suspended its legal action against the organiser of the London 2012 Games and fresh talks are planned to try to resolve the cash dispute.

The International Olympic Committee will not intervene further in the financial dispute that has engulfed the London 2012 organisers, the body's president, Jacques Rogge, said yesterday.