London Latest - West Ham Wins Stadium Bid; Watchdog Likes Olympics "Value"

Hammers Win Olympic Stadium Bid

West Ham United is the top choice to take over Olympic Stadium now that the Games are gone.

BBC Sport reports that the Premier League club was tapped as preferred bidder at a Wednesday meeting of the London Legacy Development Corporation, putting the Hammers in line to begin a 99-year lease when the venue reopens in August 2015.

"It will, if it goes through, mean a football legacy for the stadium," said LLDC chairman and London Mayor Boris Johnson, "but there is still a lot of negotiation to go on between the LLDC and West Ham United about the terms of the deal."

Changes to the $690 million stadium proposed by the Hammers and Barclay’s Premier League include the installation of retractable seating and the extension of the venue’s roof at a combined cost of up to $250 million.

West Ham has long been the preferred bidder, but legal wrangling forced the LLDC to scrap its plans to make the east London football club its tenant ahead of the 2014-2015 Premier League season.

In the latest round of bidding, three other proposals emerged from Leyton Orient, the UCFB College of Football Business and a group trying to transform the 80,000-seat stadium into part of a Formula One track.

Olympic Stadium remains one of the only venues in Olympic Park whose legacy is not yet set in stone. Athletics is at the heart of proposals, as promised to the IOC in Singapore seven years ago. The venue is already guaranteed to host the 2017 IAAF World Athletics Championships, is favorited to stage the 2017 IPC Athletics World Championships and is also on a shortlist of potential sites for the 2015 IRB Rugby World Cup in England.

Government Watchdog Likes Olympic "Value"

The U.K.’s National Accounting Office says the 2012 Olympics delivered good value for money – all for a mere 9 billion British pounds, or $14.5 billion, in public funding.

In its report on the Games, the NAO said: "By any reasonable measure the Games were a success and the big picture is that they have delivered value for money."

Final figures of costs won’t be known until 2014, the NAO added, saying the final tally would likely be 9.3 billion GBP, close to $15 billion. During the bid, the public funding was estimated to be 2.4 billion GBP ($3.9 billion).

"The construction program was completed on time and within budget, 11 million tickets were sold and our athletes excelled," Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said in a statement. "Crucially, the Games passed off without major transport disruption or security incident.

"The operational costs within the 2007 Public Sector Funding Package increased markedly, including an extra £500 million needed for venue security. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the Games were a success by any reasonable measure and it looks as if not all of the Funding Package will be used.

"There has been progress in setting up arrangements to strengthen coordination and oversight of delivery of the planned legacy of the Games. The Cabinet Office will now have to exercise strong leadership to ensure the longer-term benefits are delivered."

London Mayor Boris Johnson was in his usual bombastic form celebrating the report’s findings.

"The doomsters and Olymposceptics have been confounded yet again," he said.

"This report puts into black and white the scale of the achievement in organizing such a successful festival of sport, and pays tribute to the many different players who helped make the Games the greatest show on earth."

Written by Matthew Grayson and Ed Hula III

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