Row like marriage dispute

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DAVID HEMERY: ‘ROW LIKE MARRIAGE DISPUTE’

Lord Coe and Frankie Fredericks lay final piece of turf at London’s ­Olympic Stadium

Wednesday March 30,2011

By Colin Bateman Olympics Correspondent

THE final piece of grass was laid as construction was ­completed at London’s ­Olympic Stadium yesterday – but the turf wars still go on.

The two bodies charged with running the 2012 Games were described as being like a bickering married couple by former Olympic gold medal winner David Hemery, vice chairman of the British Olympic Association.

“I find it very sad that the focus has moved on to what is like a marriage dispute going on,” said Hemery, whose body is locked in a cash wrangle with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG).

“I would love to see greater harmony between us. We have had a great relationship with them [LOCOG] in the past and having this dispute in the public domain is not helpful.”

Earlier yesterday, former Olympic sprinter Frankie Fredericks shovelled the last piece of specially grown grass from Scunthorpe into place . The £486million, 80,000-seater stadium in east London that will be the showpiece of the Games has been completed on schedule in just under three years and was handed over to the organising committee.

I find it very sad that the focus has moved on to what is like a marriage dispute going on

David Hemery Vice chairman of the British Olympic Association

Fredericks was there as a member of the International Olympic Committee’s inspection team who are on a three-day visit to London to check the progress .

What Fredericks would not have been aware of is the internecine rows going on in the warring acronyms. While the Olympic delegation were being shown around the stadium, which now has to have finishing work done – including the laying of the running track – across London at the BOA headquarters in Charlotte Street, Sports Minister Hugh Robertson was trying to bang a few heads together.

The Government are becoming increasingly frustrated with the spat between the BOA and LOCOG over how the profits from next year’s Games, hoped to be about £400m , are shared. Of that , once any debts are cleared, 20 per cent goes to the BOA, 20 per cent to the IOC and 60 per cent is due to be ploughed back into British sport.


The BOA appear to want a slice of the action as far as that 60 per cent is concerned and are prepared to take LOCOG to the Court of Arbitration for Sport – and the row is over-shadowing preparation for 2012.

Robertson met with BOA chairman Colin Moynihan yesterday to see if a swift resolution could be found to a dispute that his organisation looks destined to lose.

Yesterday afternoon, the 33 governing bodies of all the Olympic sports in Britain that make up the BOA Olympics Committee met at BOA headquarters. There had been suggestions of a vote of no confidence in Moynihan, but that did not happen.

In fact, no one spoke against the BOA taking the matter to its costly legal conclusion in the Court of Arbitration in the autumn.

Moynihan said: “Everything we are doing is for the sports and the athletes into the future. We want an amicable resolution to all of this and we are open to discussion.”‘Having this in public is just not helpful’OLYMPICS: London 2012