Reaction to collapse of Olympic Stadium deal

Statement: Spurs, whose chairman Daniel Levy is pictured above, say they welcome the OPLC decision
11 April 2012

How football clubs and athletics governing body view shock developments in the saga:

Leyton Orient
Chairman Barry Hearn said: "We took a huge gamble on our existence because we felt our existence was being threatened and it's come off. It's expensive for a little club like Leyton Orient to go to the High Court and employ the best lawyers.

"It's a huge victory for the little man. West Ham may try to cover it up in bland language but basically there was a fight and they've been stopped from taking further punishment.

"We will definitely be making an application to be considered for a restructured Olympic Stadium, built to host athletics and football. We have to look at the cost of doing that."

West Ham
Vice-chair of West Ham, Karren Brady, and Kim Bromley-Derry, chief executive of the London Borough of Newham, said:

"Uncertainty caused by the anonymous complaint to the European Commission and ongoing legal challenges have put the Olympic legacy at risk and certainly a stadium, as we envisioned it, may not be in place by 2014 due as a direct result of the legal delay.

"Therefore, we would welcome a move by OPLC and government to end that uncertainty and allow a football and athletics stadium to be in place by 2014 under a new process. If the speculation is true, West Ham will look to become a tenant of the stadium while Newham will aim to help deliver the legacy.

"Our bid is the only one that will secure the sporting and community legacy promise of the Olympic Stadium - an amazing year-round home for football, athletics and community events of which the nation could be proud."

Tottenham
Spurs, remained silent this morning until they had seen confirmation from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that the initial deal had collapsed.

Chairman Daniel Levy had always been vocal in his belief that removing the running track was the best value for money option and in a statement issued on their website, the club said: "We welcome the OPLC decision to end the current Olympic Stadium bid process.

"We firmly believe that the bid we put forward was, in fact, a realistic sporting solution for the stadium, along with a substantial return to the taxpayer, community programming and athletics provision."

Uk Athletics
Chairman Ed Warner said: "It's fantastic news for UK Athletics and it is a bold and decisive move by the legacy company. This decision has provided absolute clarity for everyone involved.

"It guarantees the athletics legacy pledged as part of our Olympic bid and ensures the stadium will be able to host world-class athletics from the summer of 2014.

"The plans for the stadium remain unaltered. It will be remodelled as a 60,000-seat arena, fully roofed with an adjacent warm-up track.

"We look forward to welcoming the London Aviva Grand Prix to the stadium in 2014 and to hosting the World Championships in 2017 if the IAAF do us the honour of awarding the event to the UK.

"The legal process has been dragging on - it's been an irritating sideshow in the work we've been trying to do to get the stadium ready."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in