Coe attacks Picketts Lock fiasco

Coe wants changes in the structure of British sport

Sebastian Coe led the way as the Government came in for heavy criticism on Friday over the decision to scrap plans to hold the 2005 World Athletics Championships in London.

The government announced on Thursday that it is backing Sheffield's Don Valley Stadium to host the event.

The proposed stadium at Picketts Lock in north London was deemed to be too expensive.

Coe called for a complete overhaul of the way sport is run in Britain, saying those in charge could not even run a "whelk stall".

It's a terrible confusion, a shocking mess - and the Government is entirely to blame

Tony Banks
Former Sports

"If it wasn't so sad it would be very funny," Coe told BBC Radio Five Live.

"We have the opportunity of staging a world championships - given to London in 2005 - and now we are not in a position to give them a venue in London.

"People abroad must be looking at us with incredulity, and if I was sitting on the IAAF committee I'd genuinely wonder if we in Britain were capable of operating a whelk stall.

"The IAAF has gone on record as saying 'London or nowhere else' - and yet we've now got the government trying to persuade them to go to Sheffield.

"I am a Sheffielder, I've got no problem with the 2005 World Championships going to Sheffield - but how will other cities, who lost out to London in the original bidding, feel about that?

"We said to the IAAF 'Yes, we'll have a facility in place, we'll have it ready on time', and now we're saying 'We can't offer you London'. Sport fans must be wondering what is going on."

Banks says bid was always 'doomed'

Olympic triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards described the situation as "sad" and "embarrassing", and former Sports Minister Tony Banks was equally scathing about the decision.

"The Government has completely bungled the situation - the change of plan for Wembley, the withdrawal of athletics from Wembley, and the decision to try to locate the World Athletics Championship at Picketts Lock," said Banks.

"Clearly we were doomed to failure from the very beginning.

"They were warned by me, they were warned by the select committee at the House of Commons - and they chose to ignore all this advice.

"We now have a situation where we probably will have no World Athletics Championships in 2005, we haven't got a national stadium and we probably won't be able to mount a bid for the 2012 Olympic Games.

"It's a terrible confusion, a shocking mess - and the Government is entirely to blame."