Spurs Stadium Bid Suffers Another Blow
Tottenham Hotspur’s aspirations of moving into the Olympic Stadium after the London 2012 Games are set to take a major blow after Crystal Palace Football Club has confirmed it is keen to renovate the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.
The Championship club is looking at moving from Selhurst Park to an ‘exciting new venture’, which is thought to be the National Sports Centre.
The plans could put a stop to Tottenham’s Olympic Stadium bid as the club was planning to revamp the National Sports Centre in a bid to keep an athletics legacy in the city.
Spurs’ planned revamp of the centre was introduced into its plans after AEG confirmed that if their joint bid was to succeed, then the athletics track would ripped out of the Olympic Stadium.
However, Crystal Palace FC has now put forward a new proposal to build a new football stadium on the National Sports centre site – an idea which has long been rumoured as the club originally played there before moving to Selhurst Park in 1924.
The news is the second blow to the Spurs bid in short succession after the International Olympic Committee reiterated the desires of UK Athletics by insisting that it would like the London 2012 Olympic Stadium running track to be retained.
Rival bidders to occupy the Olympic Stadium West Ham will welcome the views of the IOC as the club has said that it will retain the track if it is granted occupancy.
The Olympic Park Legacy Committee (OPLC) is set to recommend which bid it thinks should take over the stadium by 28th January, but any decision will also have to be agreed by London mayor Boris Johnson and the government.
