The North club's annual meeting revealed Spurs had spent £1.7 million ($2.6 million/€2 million) on their failed bid and chairman Daniel Levy (pictured) hinted to shareholders that the club had been no more than a stalking horse for West Ham United in the entire process.

Tottenham announced in October that it had withdrawn its bid for a judicial review into the handing of the Stadium to West Ham by the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC).

A new tender process has since reopened after West Ham's funding deal with Newham Council collapsed but Tottenham are no longer interested and are focussing instead on a 66,000-seater stadium on ground next to its current location.

Levy suggested that in hindsight they would not have got involved with Stratford had they been given all the relevant facts to begin with.

"We were certainly encouraged to bid for the stadium," said Levy.

"Knowing what we now know in terms of the government's requirement to retain the [running] track, if we'd known that at the beginning we would not have bid."

London Mayor Boris Johnson has offered £17 million ($26 million/€20 million) to regenerate the Tottenham area and Levy was keen to underline there was "no money on offer" directly to the club, which has called on the public sector also to invest.

Spurs have already spent  £85 million ($132 million/€101 million) out of their own pocket as part of the £300 million ($468 million/€355 million) stadium project.

But, he insisted, the project would definitely go ahead, the main reason why Tottenham have decided to buck the usual trend and delist its shares from the stock market to go private.

The move, said Levy, "gives us maximum flexibility to raise finance".

"Failure is not an option," he added.

"The company as reflected by its share price is undervalued.

"What this highlights is that football clubs in the current environment shouldn't be public companies.

"Institutions are not interested."


Later, Sir Keith Mills (pictured), deputy chair of London 2012 and a Tottenham non-executive director, backed Levy's stance.

"We were encouraged to bid [for the Olympic site] on the basis of a Stadium that did not contain a running track," he told insidethegames.

"Everyone wanted us to bid against West Ham.

"What became apparent was that a running track was a pre-requisite.

"We've been badly done by and have received an unjustified bad press."

But even with the new stadium – known as the Northumberland Development project – there were still a number of unresolved issues.

"The public sector need to do their bit," said Sir Keith.

"Tottenham is a deprived area.

"The riots this summer were evidence of that.

"We've been working with central Government, the mayor and Haringey to make sure they step up to the plate."

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