The stadium debate goes beyond Spurs & West Ham

I did say the battle for the Olympic Stadium would heat up this month and it certainly has.

Spurs saying they will dismantle the �500m arena and build a football stadium and the IOC President Jacques Rogge saying he want the athletics track to stay.

And now calls for the government to intervene to support West Ham's plans for keeping the stadium for athletics and football.

So let's step back from all this noise and see whether it will make any difference.

And the answer is; No.

I know the people who will make this decision, Olympic Park Legacy Company chair Baroness Margaret Ford and her chief executive Andrew Altman. The OPLC board will make its proposal on January 28.

Baroness Ford is an intelligent and straight-talking Scot who doesn't like being pushed around by anyone. She will take this decision based on sound business for the taxpayer. If Spurs think they can influence her with a clever PR campaign, they are piddling into the wind.

And so are West Ham by attacking Tottenham for stepping into "their manor" in chief executive Karren Brady's newspaper column.

Ford will ignore all this and focus on the taxpayer.

American Andy Altman also has the advantage of being a details man with no emotional baggage from our football or sports world. He will crawl all over these bids from West Ham and Tottenham. And he won't let Spurs claim (as they are) that they will build a stadium with no taxpayers' cash. The club will get �35 million to rebuild from public funds. That's certain.

The fact is it's all too close to call at the moment and neither club has gone over all of its details with the OPLC yet.

But a polite request from me. Can Tottenham please stop saying there hasn't been a proper public debate about this stadium?

Maybe they don't get time to watch or listen to BBC London TV and radio and read my blogs but I've been reporting and blogging on all this for three years now and BBC viewers, listeners and blog readers have been kind enough to send us many of their opinions.

We've seen debates in parliament, and committee hearings at Westminster and at City Hall. I know, I've been to most of them. And most importantly, Baroness Ford has spent a long time talking to key figures in London about the future of this stadium.

Sorry, you've missed Londoners talking about this regularly, guys, but there has been plenty of analysis, debate and reporting. And it's an insult to the OPLC to say this hasn't been debated enough.

And to those who want government intervention now, it's important to remember that this is a commercial process. The prime minister could intervene now but he would soon find himself in the High Court.

More: BBC London 2012
Twitter: @BBCLdnOlympics

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adrianwarner/2011/01/the_stadium_debate_goes_beyond.html

Carlos Valderrama Ricardo Zamora Enzo Francescoli Edgar Davids