London Update -- Athletes Nix Funding Contracts; ODA Gets Loan from EU

Sprinter Victoria Pendleton is one of several 2012 medal hopefuls facing funding cuts if a contract dispute with UK Sport isn't resolved. (Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)Britain’s prospects of a record medal haul at the 2012 London Olympics could be badly damaged by a contractual dispute between funding body UK Sport and many of the 1,400 athletes who receive up to $100,000 in grants each year.

Lawyers acting for several of Britain’s gold medal hopefuls – including Beijing champions Christine Ohuruogu, Rebecca Adlington and Victoria Pendleton - have advised their clients not to sign agreements with UK Sport which they say threaten athletes’ individual image and sponsorship rights. The deadline for signing the contracts, which release the Lottery money for the athletes’ preparations, has been put back to the end of this month.

UK Sport has always required a minimal number of “free” appearances from Lottery-funded athletes, but pressures on raising additional cash commercially to help plug a $70 million hole in its four-year funding plan have seen the contractual demands tightened.

Team 2012, the fundraising project led by UK Sport with London 2012 and the British Olympic Association, now asks for three days’ work a year from Lottery-funded athletes, normally public appearances for sponsors of the London Games.

Some athletes, or their sports governing bodies, already have agreements with commercial rivals of the London Olympic sponsors.

The athletes’ agents and lawyers point to a contract clause which they say would stop their clients earning from their own endorsement deals: “The athlete shall not, from the commencement date, enter into any contract or arrangement with any person or undertake any endorsement, sponsorship, advertising, promotional or other activity which in any way derogates from and/or conflicts with the rights granted under this agreement.”

UK Sport says that if the athletes do not sign, it will withdraw funding. “We don't want to be in that position but we would have to consider the investment in their funding,” Tim Hollingsworth, UK Sport’s director of communications, said.

This would not only mean that the athletes would be deprived of their Lottery income, which at the top level amounts to $40,000 a year, but all other high-performance services would also be withdrawn.

European Bank Provides $370 million Loan for Village

London’s Olympic Delivery Authority, unable to raise capital loans from private banks towards the cost of building its $1.4 billion Olympic Village, has been offered a $370 million loan from the European Investment Bank.

The ODA has been hit by the credit crunch and falling property prices, seeing original plans for more than 4,000 apartments reduced by one-quarter.

The cash injection from the European Union’s banking arm will be used for about 1,000 of the apartments in the Village which will be used specifically for social housing after the Olympics.

“The European Investment Bank has long been identified as a potential funding source for the affordable housing elements of the Olympic Village as part of a private sector-led The European Investment Bank will finance $370 million of the Olympic Village. (London 2012)banking consortium,” an ODA spokesman said, also confirming that talks with Lend Lease, the developers, were continuing on private sector funding. In January, the U.K. government provided $700 million to allow the building of the Village to go ahead.

Plan To Attract Tourists from India, China and Brazil

The London Development Agency is inviting the tourism industry to have its say on how to capitalize on hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In 2007, London attracted more than 15 million overseas visits, more than New York City and Paris combined, plus 10 million domestic visitors. These visits supported 253,000 jobs and brought $25 billion in visitor spending.

The LDA’s plan calls for greater work to attract visitors from emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil, and for introduction of “London Ambassadors," volunteers to help visitors on the city’s public transport network.

Briefs…

… According to Sebastian Coe, the chairman of LOCOG and a former Conservative party Member of Parliament, “Sports politics is 20 times worse” than national politics. Coe was speaking on BBC radio promoting his latest book, The Winning Mind: My Inside Track on Great Leadership, which is published this week.

Ironically, this latest book is regularly purchased from Amazon with Dwain Chambers’s Race Against Me.

… The first sports event to be staged in London’s Olympic Park will take place Sunday. The Newham Classic 10k road race is organized by Tessa Sanderson, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics javelin gold medalist.

… The contract to enhance the facilities at Eton Dorney lake, for the rowing and canoe sprint races at the 2012 Games, has been awarded to Morrison Construction, the ODA announced last week.

The venue near Windsor, which staged the 2007 rowing world championships, already consists of a 2,000-meter, eight-lane rowing lake, return lane and associated competition facilities. Morrison will start work later this year on a road bridge over a widened return lane and other access works.

… The first permanent bridge on the site of London’s Olympic Stadium was lifted into place across the River Lea last week. The 134-foot footbridge is the first of five crossings that will link the arena, which is surrounded by water on three sides, to the rest of the 2012 Olympic Park.

… Belfast’s hopes of staging preliminary soccer matches in the 2012 Olympic tournament have been abandoned after plans to build a 40,000-seater stadium on the site of the former Maze prison were finally dropped.

… The Daily Mirror, Britain’s second-biggest selling daily tabloid newspaper, has become the official media partner for British Basketball in the build-up to the 2012 Games, and will provide at least a full page of coverage of the Great Britain international team’s progress once a month over the next two years.

Written by Steven Downes

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