• Olympics minister throws door open to London club
• Stadium use likely to be granted to highest bidder

West Ham United’s hopes of occupying the Olympic Stadium after the 2012 Games gained fresh impetus today when Tessa Jowell invited the Premier League club to put in a formal bid to take it over.

The Olympics minister announced that the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), which will manage the Stratford site after the Games, is preparing a tender process for interested parties to compete. “The legacy company is inviting bids for potential legacy tenants,” Jowell said. “It is not a decision for government. We are a stakeholder but it is a decision for the board of the legacy company. The fact is there is going to be a competition to determine the tenant and if West Ham want to submit a proposal, they are welcome.”

As Jowell was specifically calling on West Ham to bid, Britain’s International Olympic Committee member, Sir Craig Reedie, was stressing that the £537m stadium should be reduced to a 25,000 capacity in order to accommodate the athletics legacy pledged to the IOC in London’s bid. He considers that promise still to be compatible with the ambitions of either a football or a rugby club.

However, it is not a scheme that would suit West Ham and there were early indications yesterday from well-placed informants saying that OPLC will grant tenancy of the stadium to the highest bidder. It is believed that the terms of reference will be broad and that all options will be examined but, as public money is involved, there is a determination to get the best deal for the taxpayer.

The legacy-company board has yet to formulate its terms of reference for the tenancy procurement process, having only met for the first time late last year. The company is believed also to have an open mind to a deal that would see a tenant paying a fixed sum for a multi-year lease at the stadium as much as to an outright purchase.

That is likely to mean UK Athletics’ best chance of securing its tenancy is in a formal partnership with another tenant. That is not likely to be West Ham.

Olympic games 2012West Ham UnitedPremier LeagueTessa JowellMatt Scottguardian.co.uk

• Hammers had budgeted to sell £28m worth of players
• Sullivan and Gold took over club with £110m debts

David Sullivan claims West Ham United would have been forced to sell the majority of their playing staff had he and David Gold not bought the club in January.

Now West Ham’s joint chairman along with Gold, Sullivan believes the east London club was in such bad financial shape that they would have had to sell £8m worth of players last January, £16m in the summer and £20m if they were relegated to avoid financial ruin.

“The strategy for survival was in place in case there wasn’t a takeover, and we were told that it meant that £8m worth of players had to be sold in January, which would have meant a player like Scott Parker or Carlton Cole going, or maybe even both,” Sullivan told Soccernet.

“Then in the summer, the club would have needed to sell £16m worth of players to carry on surviving, having budgeted to finish 10th in the Premier League, but it might have been more like £20m if they had been relegated.

“It would have reached the stage where the club would have had no one left of any consequence, but when people are desperate they had to design desperate measures.

“For West Ham it wouldn’t have been long before they would have run out of players to sell. Yet [Icelandic bank] Straumur had put in £7.9m to keep the club afloat on top of all the debts.”

When Sullivan and Gold took over the running of the club it had debts of £110m. “We have already trimmed that down to £95m,” Sullivan said, “as we have paid off some of the debts with a few little deals, so slowly we are making some progress. But we have to look at the situation in realistic terms. This club had lost £20m, £40m and £20m in the last three years and there are another £20m losses this year.

“Ultimately we have to break even, but that is going to take some effort as we are heading for £20m losses this year again. So, you can see the first big task is to stabilise the club to give it a brighter future. We came in and bought players, saved the club from being forced to sell players, and now we are quite capable of staying up, and quite capable of surviving.”

West Ham UnitedDavid SullivanBusinessJames Callowguardian.co.uk