Independent inquiry into Olympic Stadium decision clears West Ham

The Olympic Park Legacy Company has dismissed calls to reopen the contentious Olympic Stadium bidding process after an independent audit found no evidence that an employee who also worked for West Ham United influenced the decision. The news will disappoint Tottenham Hotspur, who will challenge the decision to award the Olympic Stadium to West Ham and Newham Council in the high court on Wednesday. It marks the latest legal step in their attempt to block the move. The mayor of London's office and the government endorsed the decision not to reopen the bidding process. In June the OPLC's director of corporate services, Dionne Knight, was suspended after it emerged that she had also worked for West Ham during the bidding process. The OPLC said it was not aware that Knight, who was in a relationship with West Ham's Olympic project director Ian Tompkins, had agreed to do consultancy work for the east London club. It commissioned an independent audit from the accountants Moore Stephens, which found no evidence that Knight had access to confidential information nor that she passed any information relating to the stadium process to West Ham nor that she influenced the selection process. "After considering the report the Olympic Park Legacy Company Board has concluded there are no grounds for reconsidering their recommendation to select the consortium of West Ham United FC and the London borough of Newham as the preferred bidder for the legacy use of the Olympic Stadium," it said. "The legacy company's founder members, the mayor of London and government, have also concluded that there are no grounds for reconsidering their decision to select West Ham United FC and the London borough of Newham as preferred bidder." Spurs, who argued that the only viable solution was to pull down the majority of the stadium and rebuild it as a dedicated football ground, continue to believe the selection process was flawed and unfair. The revelation that Knight carried out project work for West Ham, which the club said related to its procurement processes, during the bidding process emerged as a result of newspaper reports based on the work of a private investigator. West Ham reported the actions of the private investigator to the police, claiming that the privacy of its executives may have been breached. West Ham conducted their own review of their internal processes and said this month that they had found that Knight's work had not affected the "integrity" of their stadium bid and the findings "completely exonerate the club over the matter and showed it acted lawfully at all times".