Exclusive: Coe - Sullivan comments are like cracked record

By Duncan Mackay in Whistler
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year

March 19 – Sebastian Coe (pictured), the chairman of London 2012, has claimed that comments from critics that the Olympic Stadium should be turned over to a football club after the Games and that if it used to stage athletics it is waste of public money are beginning to sound like “a cracked record”.

He was reacting to the latest comments from David Sullivan, the co-owner of West Ham United, and Sir Robin Wales, the Mayor of Newham, that the Stadium should be given to the struggling Premier League club on condition that they would contribute to the costs of converting it into a football-only arena and contribute some of their future earnings to it.

But Coe, who is currently visiting the Winter Paralympics here, insisted that he has no doubt that the stadium will retain an athletics facility after the Games and that if West Ham wanted to move into it then they would have to accommodate a running track.

Coe exclusively told insideworldfootball here: “This is becoming to sound like a cracked record.

“The commitment we made in Singapore [at the International Olympic Committee Session in July 2005 when London were awarded the Games] is for a mix-used facility, including track and field.

“This has not changed.

“This is a problem that football has.

“The commitment to athletics stands.

“I’m very comfortable with it.

“The vision that was presented was a very clear one and unambiguous.

“It wasn’t to further the ambitions of Premiership football club.”

Sullivan claimed in an interview with the BBC that the only “sensible option” is to opt for a 60,000-capacity venue that West Ham could rent.

“To build an 80,000-seat stadium and reduce it to 25,000 for athletics makes no sense at all,” he said.

“Let’s be honest, that stadium should not have cost £537 million.

“It’s a temporary stadium with limited facilities – that’s public money appallingly badly spent.”

Sullivan said that they would “happily chip in” for the stadium to be modified so that it could they move from Upton Park and it become West Ham’s new home.

Sir Robin, a season ticket-holder at West Ham, said: “We are concerned about it being a white elephant.

“We were concerned [at the time of the bid] and we continue to be concerned.

“Unless somebody comes up with money from somewhere else, the only realistic solution is to make the stadium work for a Premier League football team and that would be West Ham.”

It is unlikely that London would have won its bid to host the Olympics if it had not guaranteed a legacy for athletics.

To many observers, the turning point was when Coe persuaded Lamine Diack (pictured here with Coe), the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and an influential member of the IOC, that a vote for London would ensure a new top-class facility for the sport after the Games.

The fact that Diack took some persuading was not surprising because in 2001 the then Prime Minister Tony Blair had gone back on a written promise to build a stadium at Pickett’s Lock to host the 2005 World Championships.

It was the second time that London had bid for the World Athletics Championships and reneged on its guarantee.

In 1997 it had to withdraw its bid after the Government had failed to keep a commitment that the new stadium at Wembley would be able to accommodate athletics.

Embarrassingly, the 2005 World Championships were taken away from London four years before the event and had to be moved to Helsinki.

For a long time that threatened to fatally undermine London’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics until Coe made his promise to Diack.

But the future of the Stadium is now largely out of Coe’s hands as that will determined by the Olympic Legacy Park Company (OLPC), a comapny set-up jointly by London City Hall and the Government and responsible for planning post-Games use of the venues.
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But Coe remains confident that his promise to Diack will be kept.

He told insideworldfootball: “There is no change.

“Within the commitments we made [to the IOC], track and field remains part of the mix.”

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