³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Despite claims to the contrary, Boris Johnson believes the Olympic Stadium will be ready to reopen before the end of the Rio Games in 2016.

Nevertheless - and despite the London Mayor's optimism when talking to London Assembly members on Wednesday - it remains a very real prospect that a stadium widely acclaimed during London's successful Games, and which took just three years to build, will take four years to convert.

Dennis Hone, the chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), said as much again when he repeated his line to the London Assembly from last week that 2015 is now the target but 2016 a possibility.

Johnson added, worryingly, that Londoners might have to be patient and recognise the Olympic Stadium was not built to be "the kind of omni-purpose world-class venue capable of hosting Premier League football that it should be".

Read the rest of this entry

The uncontested election of Lord Coe as chairman of the British Olympic Association is a big coup for an organisation facing serious financial challenges and major questions over its role post-London 2012.

In many ways the BOA has never been stronger. Team GB's third-place finish in the medal table in London - arguably the country's best performance in the history of the modern Games - may have been financed and overseen by UK Sport and the sports themselves in the run-up to the Games but it would be churlish to overlook the way the BOA ran the team in the face of huge expectations from a home crowd desperate for success.

But Coe's predecessor Lord Moynihan knew what he was doing when he announced at the end of the Games that he would be leaving a year short of his full term. The BOA's finances continue to look perilous - the 2011 accounts showed a £411,000 loss and it has extended a £5m overdraft to next year.

Read the rest of this entry

Even as the Mark Clattenburg controversy was building up a head of steam and threatening to mire the Premier League in another poisonous race row, the competition's cash registers were ringing to the sound of yet more foreign television cash.

A day after announcing a ground-breaking deal with chief executive Richard Scudamore was in Beijing on Tuesday morning to reveal a six-year extension to its current deal with Chinese TV partner Super Sport.

Having secured a staggering £3bn for the League's domestic TV rights for the three years between 2013 and 2016, Scudamore is now seeking to beat the existing overseas rights deal, which is worth another £1bn. He told me from China that although the League has only concluded one fifth of its new overseas deals, he is confident of raising more income this time around.

Rather than turning foreign broadcasters off, the unseemly soap opera which provides a backdrop to football in this country just seems to add to the attraction.

Read the rest of this entry