Coe warns Spurs stadium plan would 'trash our reputation'

(AP)

Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Committee (LOCOG), said yesterday that Britain's reputation would be "trashed" if Tottenham Hotspur's plan to rip down the Olympic Stadium was given the go-ahead next week.

Spurs are vying with fellow Premier League club West Ham United to take over the £500m stadium after the Games – West Ham's plan will maintain an athletics legacy, Tottenham's will not.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) is evaluating both bids and is expected to make its recommendation on Friday, after which the Government and mayor of London will have the final say on the future of the site.

"It's serious we deliver what we said we were going to unless we're prepared to trash our reputation," Coe, who has so far been guarded in his comments on the process, despite his athletics background, told BBC Radio Five.

"It'd be very difficult for us to be taken seriously in the corridors of world sport and arguably beyond."

Jessica Ennis is getting ready to face Britain's two world-class recruits from overseas in Glasgow next weekend after maintaining her flying start to the indoor season in the Loughborough Open meeting on Saturday. The world heptathlon champion has been picked as captain of the Great Britain team for the International Match at Kelvin Hall on Saturday and will line up against two athletes who have taken advantage of British passports to switch nationalities.

In the 60 metres hurdles Ennis will face Tiffany Ofili, a former World Junior Championship bronze medallist for the US. Ofili hails from Ypsilanti, Michigan – where one James Newell Osterberg Jnr, more popularly known as Iggy Pop, was raised in a trailer park. Her mother is British and she has a British passport.

In the long jump, Ennis competes against Shara Proctor, who finished sixth for Anguilla in that event at the World Championships in Berlin two years ago. As Anguilla is an overseas British colony, and without Olympic affiliation, she has had a British passport since birth and is free to change allegiance.