Coe: Moral Obligation To 2012 Athletics Legacy

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe has thrown his support behind West Ham’s Olympic Stadium bid, saying there is a ‘moral obligation’ to preserve an athletics legacy.

‘It’s serious we deliver what we said we were going to unless we’re prepared to trash our reputation,’ said Coe.

‘It’d be very difficult for us to be taken seriously in the corridors of world sport and arguably beyond.’International Athletics Association Federation chief Lamine Diack warned Britain that there would be ‘no way to come back’ from converting the 2012 Olympic Stadium into a football ground.

If Tottenham wins its joint bid with AEG to occupy the ground it will rip out the running track from the stadium.

But Diack says that Britain’s reputation in sport will be terminally damaged if that happened: ‘They’ll have made a big lie during their presentation. There will be no credibility… of a great country like Britain.’

Coe also says that the idea of leaving the stadium without a running track could be an embarrassment: ‘I remember delivering a vision about a generation of young people being inspired to take up Olympic sports, I remember talking about young people in a poor community in East London fashioning their future through sport.’

‘I’m prepared to revisit my words but I don’t recall a whole heap about bulldozing down a publicly-funded community facility, replacing it with a football club and inspiring a generation of Tottenham season ticket holders, however many there may be on a waiting list.’

Coe is also unimpressed by Tottenham’s plan to rejuvenate the National Sports Centre at Crystal Palace saying: ‘We set up legacy board when we were bidding and there is a viable bid on the table (West Ham’s) which is presenting exactly the case we made.’

Coe also slated Brazilian football legend Pele’s public endorsement of Tottenham’s plan: ‘On this case we might as well get the winner of X Factor and Celebrity Masterchef out there.’