London Latest - London Stadium Legacy Debate; Ireland Torch Relay Issues

Stadium Legacy Debate Rolls On

Olympic Park Legacy Company chair Margaret Ford says she is confident the new tender process to find tenants for the London 2012 stadium has potential for a "really good" outcome.

"I am not apologetic for closing down the last [bidding] process. To have left the Olympic stadium in limbo for another 18 months or two years, through 2014 and 2015, and in the dark possibly into 2016 would have been an absolute travesty," Ford told London Assembly members Tuesday.

The OPLC last month scrapped negotiations with West Ham football club to take over the 80,000-seat stadium after the Games. The decision was triggered by concerns over possible delays in post-Olympics conversion due to a legal dispute with rival club Tottenham Hotspur and an anonymous complaint to the European Commission.

"We could not be held to ransom for another year with vexatious claims to the European Commission," she said. "We have to get this stadium transformed after the Games.

The decision was made to keep the $760 million stadium in public ownership, delivering a mixed-used venue. OPLC chiefs are seeking to enhance the athletics legacy plan for the stadium by renting out the stadium to an anchor football tenant and staging other entertainment events at the venue. A new tender process is underway which Ford said "narrowed the scope for litigation". But she said she would not be surprised if legal challenges emerge.

Ford made an extraordinary claim that Tottenham Hotspur had put all 14 members of the OPLC board under surveillance during the north London football club's bid for the Olympic stadium.

Dee Doocey, chairman of the London Assembly's economy, sport and culture committee, labeled the allegations facing Spurs as "reprehensible".

"It almost beggars belief that this could happen. The idea of any board being put under surveillance is absolutely disgraceful," she said.

London's Metropolitan Police are investigating the allegations, which Spurs deny.

OPLC chief executive Andrew Altman told Assembly members the fresh bid process "gives us maximum flexibility" to make the venue commercially viable, although he said details of the plan to offer multiple licenses were to still to be finalized before the OPLC board's Nov. 28 meeting.

With the IAAF choosing between London's Olympic stadium and Doha's Khalifa stadium for the 2017 worlds on Friday, Ford noted that the OPLC had given reassurances and emphasised that the Olympic Stadium legacy plan was now in a "much, much stronger position".

"After the Olympics, we would all expect athletics as a sport to have a bit of a fillip," she said, suggesting the stadium could be filled with fans for events such as a Diamond League meet.

DeloitteLeases Hospitality Space for London 2012

Deloitte plans to lease a two-story space next to Olympic Park for next year’s Olympics.

Bloomberg reports that the giant accounting firm will have a 16,000 square foot space in the One Stratford Place office building to entertain clients.

"During the Games, it will become the firm’s base near the Olympic Park and will be used primarily for meetings and hospitality," spokesperson James Igoe told the news agency.

The firm will rent the space from January to the end of the Paralympics in September.

One Stratford Place, which has 130,000 square feet of office space, is part of a larger complex adjacent to Olympic Park owned by the Westfield Group.

Deloitte is a sponsor of the 2012 Olympics.

Dublin Possibility for Torch Relay

London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe hopes the IOC will back plans to bring the Olympic torch to Dublin.

The decision rests with the IOC Executive Board which meets in Lausanne next month.

LOCOG on Monday revealed that the torch relay would visit 1,018 places in the U.K. on its 70-day trek prior to the opening of the Games on July 27. But Dublin was not listed.

Coe told the Irish Times that Games organizers still wanted to include the city on the itinerary for "all sorts of reasons".

"We are now really working through the feasibility of this," he said, noting that there was a window of opportunity to take the Olympic flame to Dublin between the torch's arrival in Belfast on June 3 and June 7 when it heads to Scotland.

The IOC decided to ban the international portion of the torch relay after violent protests against China marred the Beijing 2008 relay on the streets of London, Paris and San Francisco.

But the Olympic Council of Ireland is seeking an exception to the rule in a bid to celebrate 14 years of peace in Northern Ireland under the Good Friday Agreement that has changed the system of government within Northern Ireland and helped improve its relationship with the U.K and the South.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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