The announcement that the keys to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford are all but set to be handed over to West Ham in favour of Tottenham’s bid will have come as little surprise to most, but the nature of the decision’s release and a few aspects that have come to light since are most troubling.
West Ham were always deemed favourites for the stadium, namely due to their geographical closeness between their existing ground, Upton Park, and the site of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.
Their bid was in direct contrast to Spurs’ bid. West Ham proposed to keep the running track, a key issue when dealing with the Olympic Park Legacy Company, and have already got sufficient plans in place to make revenue, such as striking a deal that would see Madonna perform at the stadium and an agreement to have Essex play their Twenty20 games at the stadium.
Spurs however, from the outset, were not afraid of rocking the boat. They planned to demolish the stadium, the running track included, and build their own stadium to suit their own needs. As part of their bid, to appease outcry from the world athletics community, they also planned to redevelop Crystal Palace, the current home of UK athletics.
Sources leaked as early as yesterday suggested that the decision was all but made in West Ham’s favour, before the Olympic Park Legacy Company had even reconvened to make a final decision. It has since transpired that the board came to a unanimous verdict. Add into the mix that an 11am press conference had been called in central London for today, only to then be postponed until an hour or so later, and it would appear that the board had already made their mind up as to the victor in this most bitter of pursuits.
Former Spurs Chairman Lord Alan Sugar had this to say on the days events: “I am somewhat outraged that there have been leaks. The OPLC board say nobody should take any notice of them and that no decision has been made, but usually there is no smoke without fire. The leaks about Tottenham only meeting three of the five-point criteria, well, if that’s the case why did they even get past the first rounds of the process? It has not been very well handled.”
Lord Sugar is of course correct, no final decision has yet been made and the OPLC, while a major player in the decision, is an advisory board. The government and Mayor Boris Johnson are expected to rubber-stamp any such preference that the OPLC may have though and the Spurs bid, while not completely finished, does look somewhat dead in the water.
It does beg the question though as Lord Sugar also queried – if Spurs’ bid fell down on two of the major criteria to win the bid, why were they even considered?
The theory doing the rounds now is that Spurs’ bid was doomed to failure from the outset and that it was being used as nothing more than a pawn in negotiations between the OPLC and West Ham over various issues such as keeping the word ’Olympic’ in the stadium name. Even if West Ham do choose to sell the naming rights to the stadium they must now ensure that the word Olympic remains in the title and the OPLC also sought a firm and lasting commitment over the issue of the running track, the main issue of debate between the two bids.
Conspiracy theorists will have a field day over the coming weeks and any such decision will be bitterly contested in another round of who can make the most unpleasant comments towards the other, but it appears West Ham’s bid has been favoured due the club’s stronger links with the community.
If that is the main criteria, then it is hard to argue against, for a football stadium is supposed to be the epicentre of a community, however, it does appear that Spurs have been misled from the beginning to a certain extent. The honesty of their bid and their true intentions has been clear from the start whereas West Ham’s has at times hidden behind smoke screens and emotive rhetoric.
As happened with England’s failed bid to win the rights to host the 2018 World Cup, there appears to be more at work here than meets the eye. It is odd for such a strong and well-structured bid such as Spurs to come up so short with concerns to what the OLPC were looking for.
West Ham have presented a very strong case and perhaps their victory was assured purely on the strength of their bid, little more. From the West Ham perspective, Spurs are simply crying foul because they lost and the fact that West Ham’s bid already has so much in place with concerns to bringing in various revenue streams is certainly commendable. However, in keeping with the mood that has dominated the bidding process so far, this story may have a few twists and turns in it just yet before it is over.
