Invasion Denied: West Ham Wins Bid For Olympic Stadium, Prevents Tottenham Move

You didn’t think this Olympic Stadium business was actually over, did you? Despite West Ham United beating out Tottenham Hotspur to officially win the bidding to move into London’s Olympic Stadium following the 2012 Games, the saga has apparently continued, albeit in slightly odd form - the Olympic Park Legacy Committee have claimed that Tottenham have launched a legal challenge to the ruling, while Spurs have insisted that they haven’t but could they review it anyway pretty please?

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, but both sides agree that correspondence has been exchanged regarding the bidding process. At that point, the OPLC believes that the letters send by Tottenham are the beginning of legal action, at least according to a statement issued today (via the Guardian):

The OPLC executives will present their decision to the OPLC board at a Friday meeting and the board is expected to support the executives’ decision. The government and London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, will also have to sign off on the OPLC’s decision, but it would be considered a massive shock if they didn’t confirm West Ham’s bid as the winner.

With two historic London clubs in the bidding for the stadium and financial windfall a 60,000 seat stadium would provide, the battle to take over the Olympic Stadium has been one of the most contentious and important storylines in the Premier League this season. Both clubs believe they need a more modern and larger ground than the ones they current play in, which seat 35,000 and 36,000 people respectively and are over 100 years old.