Another Classic British Fudge

The Olympic Stadium will become the home of West Ham United after the Olympics. Cameron and Boris have made their decision and it leaves a handful of people happy. Everyone else is disappointed.

The powers-that-be are desperate that the Olympic Stadium should basically retain its 'Olympic' status. They have ploughed a lot of time and energy into bringing the Olympics to London and they want an olympic footprint to remain for many years to come. It's a prestige thing. The problem is that, whilst today's decision may satisfy their desire for a prestige legacy, it preserves an athletic stadium that will probably never require the capacity the current stadium provides.

Tottenham Hotspur FC had proposed an ultimately sensible solution. They had proposed rebuilding the stadium as a single-purpose football stadium, without an athletic track, and to secure the future of british athletics by revamping the athletics facilities at Crystal Palace. It was not only an excellent use of the olympic site, and would have provided the club and its fans with a state of the art football stadium, it would have been an excellent solution for athletics too.

But Cameron and Boris have plumped for the West Ham option, which retains the current stadium, complete with an athletics track. The West Ham fans hate the idea. Watching football across an athletics track is pants - the atmosphere suffers in order to preserve a track that will rarely be used. Tottenham fans hate the idea because they have missed out on a chance to move to a large purpose-built stadium. Leyton Orient FC hate the idea as it moves their east end rivals into their back yard. Barry Hearn, the Orient Chairman, is determined to fight the decision in the courts.

Football in an Olympic Stadium - Can anyone see the pitch?

So, who is happy? The West Ham board of directors. Lord Coe. Dave & Boris. End of list.

The fact is that we live in a nation where football achieves huge attendances whilst athletics rarely attracts much attention. We will get to keep an Olympic Stadium - just because. Legacies need more than sentiment. They need to have genuine legs. This decision satisfies a vision but not the reality. I extend my sympathy to Tottenham Hotspur FC and their fans; to Leyton Orient FC and their fans - who may go bust; to the fans of athletics who could have had a sensible, dedicated and purpose built facility in London. But most of all, I am sorry for the fans of West Ham, who are destined to watch football from afar. Hammers fans will be adding binoculars to their scarves and hats in the future.

The Olympic logo (an epileptic nightmare)

This is a classic british fudge. Only in britain could a decision be made that leaves nearly everyone unhappy. We have built a stadium that, after the Olympics, will rarely be used for athletics and will be hated by its regular users. We have an Olympics that is way beyond budget in a time of global recession. We even have an Olympic logo that is universally hated (some muslims are complaining that it is insulting as it spells 'Zion'). I predict the Olympics will be a damp squib. If any nation can take a celebration of sport and turn it into an expensive car crash, it will be Britain.

A more appropriate version