MPs say Wembley now looks like a dead duck

Inside Lines

By the time England return from the World Cup it could be all over. For Wembley, that is. The Government are getting fed up with it, so is athletics and now there are are a growing number of influential voices within the Football Association who are saying: Let's call the whole thing off. With plans for the £715 million redevelopment of the stadium now on indefinite hold, this week's rescheduled Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry, postponed when the acerbic chairman, Gerald Kaufman, MP, angrily discovered that large portions of a report submitted by the FA-owned Wembley National Stadium Ltd, detailing alleged budgetary mismanagement, had been blacked out, could prove crucial to the project's future. While the missing elements, now restored under duress, are not dynamite they are explosive enough to rock Wembley's still undug foundations. A body of MPs on both sides of the House, some of whom are threatening to lodge a formal complaint with the Lottery ombudsman about "misuse" of funds, already hold the view that Wembley should be abandoned. There is some support for Birmingham to be brought off the subs' bench but a number of club chairmen have told the FA they would be better off blowing the whistle, and continuing to put England games on the road, as at present. This would still leave the problem of where to hold the FA Cup final but Cardiff's Millennium Stadium is not an unpopular prospect as a permanent fixture despite transportation problems. Currently the FA are far more pre-occupied with the World Cup than Wembley, which has long been regarded in sport as a lame duck. Now it is looking decidedly like a dead one.

An institution ready for a revolution

It has to be a matter of some regret for the Government that the former Olympic athlete Steve Cram is no longer interested in taking over from Trevor Brooking as chairman of Sport England later this year. The way he handled the launch of the English Institute of Sport, which he chairs, last week was deeply impressive, as, indeed, is its chief executive Wilma Shakespear. With a name like that we hope it turns out to be a case of All's Well That Ends Well and not Love's Labours Lost. As befits her Aussie breeding, Mrs Shakespear is tough and brash, just what the project needs. But can she – and the articulate Cram – successfuly institutionalise our sport in a regional network which Cram likens to a corner shop for athletes – except that they don't have to pay for the goodies? They made a bit of a song and dance about it at Sadler's Wells, but we left still unclear about the relationship between the EIS and the UK Sports Institute. "It's a complicated picture," Cram admits. Meantime there's still no sign of Brooking's successor, though with Cram out it will be a suit, not a tracksuit.

Harrison sets his sights on Francis

It certainly looks good on paper. Audley Harrison's first real test since turning pro, coming fist to face with an opponent who, like himself, is a former ABA champion and is unbeaten. Yes, for once it is not a bad match, albeit a shrewd one made by Harrison's manager, Colin McMillan. Let's not spoil the plot by suggesting that 25-year-old Mark Krence can't break an egg, as they say in the trade, and so is unlikely to wipe the smile off the Olympic super-heavyweight champion's face when they meet over six rounds at London's Excel Arena on Tuesday. Krence has been assisted in his preparation by the former British champion Julius Francis, who we hear is lined up to meet Harrison in his first "big" fight later this year.

All over the land they're bending it like Beckham. Sporting films and videos are as much in fashion as replica shirts. The latest, featuring the life and times of Bobby Moore, has received rave reviews and it seems that if directors want a hit these days, they need to give it a sporting spin.

So in all seriousness, I pass on the news that a young London-based Indian director has just shot a film of his own mother making samosas which he likens to the fight sequences in Raging Bull. According to Nilesh Patel, cooking is like a martial art, and he depicts the scenes of his mum rolling and folding the pastry as if they were rounds of boxing. The potato peeling is done to a background of Robert de Niro shadow boxing. I kid you not. "It is a celebration of skill, speed and accuracy but using female palms rather than a male gloved fist," he says. Called A Love Supreme it lasts nine minutes and may sound like a load of old Bollywood but Patel is hoping Naseem Hamed will back the distribution of his "anti-racist comedy-drama".

The sports minister, Richard Caborn, has been cheerfully doing his "Dick-will-fix-it" bit for our Olympians. During a recent visit to Cyprus he paved the way for that country to be used as a long-term warm-weather base, starting with the 2002 Games in Athens.

The British Olympic Association, keen to repeat the staging-post success of the Gold Coast camp so instrumental in bringing a shoal of medals in Sydney, like the idea of using the excellent facilities but say no deal has yet been done. "We are still negotiating and looking at other sites along the Mediterranean coast," says chief executive Simon Clegg. "But the minister has certainly helped to open the doors for us."

insidelines@independent.co.uk

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