Des Kelly- Spurs vandals musnt wreck Olympic legacy

Last updated : 15 January 2011 By Daily Mail

That has nothing to do with the word 'legacy'. That's vandalism.

Tottenham Hotspur's proposals for the main arena of the 2012 Games tell you everything you need to know about the swaggering arrogance and shameless opportunistic greed of modern football.

Nightmare vision: how the Olympic Stadium would look if Tottenham took it over after the 2012 Games

For Spurs to blithely announce that they will relocate to a part of east London that has nothing to do with them, flatten an 80,000-seat stadium, replace it with a new football-only facility that holds 60,000, even though thousands of their own fans oppose the move, is breathtaking in its conceit.

But this wrecking-ball diplomacy faces another obstacle. One of the key promises that Great Britain made when they won the right to host the 2012 Games was to guarantee the Olympic arena would retain an athletics track as part of London's ongoing legacy.

FOLLOW DES ON TWITTERFollow the Sportsmail columnist HERE

Tottenham think they have found a crafty way around that. They say they will revamp the decrepit Crystal Palace site and athletics can continue to be catered for there. But if Palace were a prime location, it would hardly be in the state of disrepair and neglect it is now. The transport links are poor and the only way Crystal Palace might seriously be renovated is via the detonation of a small nuclear device. At least the Olympic venue would allow the nation's capital to host the World and European Athletics Championships in the years ahead.

Besides, who the hell do Spurs think they are? Who are they to tell the sport of athletics where their ambitions would be better served?

This is a stadium that was essentially paid for with taxpayers' money and National Lottery funding. So it is our Olympic Stadium - and immediately knocking it down after the Games, a venue where history will be made, would be the height of philistinism.

Moreover, how can Britain sneer at FIFA as they wriggle out of pledges and rewrite the Qatar 2022 World Cup plans without any discernible mandate if we cannot keep our promises on major events held here?

Spin doctors say the move makeseconomic sense for Tottenham because they can earn around £150millionfrom the new stadium naming rights.

Well,whoop de doo. Frankly, nobody beyond those with Spurs' allegiancesgives a javelin toss whether a Premier League club makes even moremoney or not.

Will they get their hands on the stadium? David Gold and David Sullivan

But there is an alternative scenario to Tottenham's bulldozer plot. West Ham also hope to move up the road to the Olympic site.

They intend to retain the athletics track, much of the existing structure and allow the local community access to a multi-purpose stadium in partnership with Newham Council.

Now I'm not exactly doing cartwheels about the Hammers' porn barons getting their hands on the ground either, and it is obvious that watching football across an athletics track can be an alienating compromise. But I'd still rather David Gold and David Sullivan had the place if it means locals and other sports are catered for and the athletics has somewhere better to call home after the Games than Crystal Palace.

The Olympic Park Legacy Board is due to announce its verdict at the end of this month. The clue as to how they must vote is in their name, where the words 'Olympic Legacy' figure prominently.

Spurs don't really offer one of those. And we have to remember that sport in this country is not all about football, you know.

 

Babel knows tweet FA about TwitterEveryone is getting all of a flutter about Twitter, imposing bans, fines and discussing censorship, butthe solution to all of the problems is really quite simple.

Whenever I'm asked by a public figure about the dos and don'ts of this relatively new online phenomenon I tell them to remember this.

Twitter. Is. Broadcasting.

Controversial: Ryan Babel (left) posted a mocked-up picture of Howard Webb on his Twitter page

People forget. They think they're sending a text to a friend or posting an email to people they know.

They continue to believe this right up to the point when their sweary rant appears in banner headlines on the front page.

The basic rule is, if you wouldn't dare say it to a news camera, a journalist or via a megaphone from your open window, then it's best not to tweet it either.

So it's absolutely right that Ryan Babel is charged by the Football Association. The Liverpool player wouldn't roll into a press conference and announce, 'They call Howard Webb one of the best referees? That's a joke'. Not without expecting a whopping fine, anyway.

So there's no reason that as a professional he should be allowed to publicly transmit the same statement to more than 170,000 followers on his Twitter page, plus the countless thousands more itwas forwarded to.

Babel has admitted improper conduct and apologised, saying it was 'just an emotional reaction after losing an important game'.

It is a civilised response, but it's no alibi for trashing any match official in public and he will have his knuckles quite rightly rapped by the FA.

I know people get very po-faced about Twitter because I was previously one of those people.

When asked by the Daily Mail to start a page during the World Cup finals I really couldn't see the point. But after a few weeks, it became quite addictive.

Like olives or Adrian Chiles, Twitter is an acquired taste. You have to sift out the dross, such as celebs who believe the fact they have made a cup of tea is some kind of world event.

That is easy enough and underneath the banality you find a lucky dip of random wit, instant knowledge and genuine breaking news.

So join in. We all slip up from time to time, but if people play nice it can be great fun. I'll stand by thatendorsement right up until the point when I forget that bit about tweets not being texts and @P45_4U sends me my final message.

 Rugger off FabregasThere is nothing like losing with good grace and Cesc Fabregas clearly knows nothing about losing with good grace.

I had been looking for an opportunity to praise the Arsenal captain for performing to a consistently high standard this season, especially as I had criticised the club's decision to retain him as skipper, unfairly as it turned out, following his aborted move to Barcelona in the summer.

Why couldn't he lose with good grace? Cesc Fabregas and Arsenal were a big disappointment at Portman Road

But in the wake of the defeat against Ipswich Town in midweek, Fabregas betrayed a churlishness that did him no credit, claiming Arsenal were only beaten in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final because of their opponents' rugby-style tactics.

This is becoming an increasingly tiresome theme from the Gunners. First Manchester City had the temerity to prevent them from scoring at the Emirates. Then Ipswich found perfectly legitimate ways to expose their vulnerable defence.

Rather than offer up unjustified gripes, Fabregas would have been better served concentrating on his own team's failings and pledging to set them right in the return, as sensible Gunners fans had already acknowledged.

Arsenal always play with class on the pitch, which makes it more of a shame when they cannot reach similar levels of refinement off it.

 Having lost the Labour leadership contest to his brother, Arsenal supporter David Miliband is about to become vice-chairman of Sunderland Football Club, a position that pays him a further £50,000 a year.

I have another idea. Why doesn't Miliband just do the job WE pay him to do as a full-time Member of Parliament?

 

Writing a weekly sports column can be a perilous exercise. Last week, a colleague on a Sunday newspaper predicted 'Torres will relish his chance to give Vidic another nightmare' in a large headline across his page.

Later the same day he discovered Vidic was not playing and although Torres was on the pitch he didn't really play either. The columnist was a chap called Kenneth Dalglish. I believe he has also found himself a second job.

 Calling amateur Sherlocks and Miss Marples. Olympic champion swimmer Mark Foster had three World Championship medals and one Commonwealth Games gong stolen from his car in London last month.

Each one is engraved with his name. If you have any information that leads to their recovery, I'm sure my friend can rustle up a suitable reward. Remember, the Olympics are coming, unless Spurs knock the stadium down in advance.

Contact me via Direct Message on Twitter or email in confidence.

 Change your name to Stratford Hotspur! Tottenham MP David Lammy plans court action over switch to Olympic StadiumBoost for West Ham as Olympics chief admits he would prefer running track

 Explore more:People: Mark Foster, David Sullivan, Ryan Babel, David Gold, Adrian Chiles, David Miliband Places: Barcelona, Liverpool, London, Qatar, Olympic Stadium Organisations: Football Association, Newham Council

Source: Daily Mail

Source: Daily Mail