The Premier Leaguers want to renew Crystal Palace as an athletics facility, enabling them to build their own exclusively football facility on the site of the 2012 Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

After presenting the details of his club's proposed new development in Crystal Palace Park - a 25,000-seater stadium which could be expanded to a capacity of 40,000, aswell as a new aquatics and sports complex and a new community athletics track - Parish insisted: "We are not head-to-head with Spurs.

"But we definitely wanted to put our proposalsinto the mix before the decision over the legacy issue of the Olympic Park was decided.

"The announcement of Tottenham's plans for Crystal Palace probably means we have brought forward our own agenda by a matter of weeks - but not of months or years.

"We would rather have the Crystal Palace site to ourselves.

But if Spurs win the decision [due on January 28] I think there's a conversation to be had about a dual usage stadium.

"I think any football club would be lying if they said they wanted an athletics track to be laid around their pitch.

"But it would mean a stadium being used all the year round.

"We would be open to discussions."

Parish made the point, however, that building a dual-use stadium would require arevision of the club's current provisional budget of £50 million ($79 million) for the project.

"It's a very difficult thing to do," he said.

"Retractable seating and all those kind of things are expensive."



Asked if Crystal Palace had spoken to Spurs about the £35 million ($56 million) "transformation money" which could be available to either Spurs or West Ham to help create an athletics legacy – West Ham would put it towards turning the Olympic Stadium into a dualusage facility – Parish replied: "Spurs are ploughing their own furrow at the moment so we have left them alone."

He added: "My personal view is that if Charlton, for instance, said they were going to move to Croydon I would think they were insane.

"I thought Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes would be the first and last time anything like that happened in football.

"I know they say only 20 per cent of Spurs fans live near White Hart Lane, but they don't live in Stratford either.

"For me, as a football man, this is a nonsense.

"But that doesn't mean it's not going to happen."

Parish said he had not had access to the Spurs plan for the Palace site, but he questioned whether the proposed revamped athletics stadium would be suitable to fulfil the legacy obligation of hosting big competitions such as the IAAF World Championships, which UK Athletics wants to bring to London in 2017.

"Moving this club to Crystal Palace Park has been our dream since we took over theclub last July," Parish said.

"It was always our preferred option.

"But before we made any announcement about the Park it was vital to speak to some of the major stakeholders.

"For instance, if the leaseholder had said a flat 'No' then itwould have been wrong to have got a lot of people excited."

Parish agreed that getting the acceptance of local residents was going to be a key issuein whether the plans would succeed, but added: "As there's already a stadium there now its difficult for me to see what the objections would be.."

Palace want to return to their original home - they began life playing on the old FA Cup final pitch on the site between 1905 and 1914 - in order to offer a fresh facility to attract more support.

Parish pointed out that Palace have a big catchment area, and attracted crowds of 58,000 to Selhurt Park during their play-off finals in the late 80s.



But he insisted: "It's a viable option even if we do drop down to League One.

"That would probably mean looking at a 25,000-seater stadium rather than a 40,000-seater.

"But we can't let the slings and arrows of fortune dicate our long-term plans.

"There will always be a Crystal Palace Football Club.

"The money we get from sellingthe Selhurst Park site will all go towards a new ground, rather than being spenton players as has happened in the past.

"We would not think of putting the club injeopardy in that way.

"We couldn't have got this far without the support of Croydon Borough Council.

"I think they feel they've got a stake in the Park because it so close to the Borough - just a stone's throw away.

"If we had said we wanted to move to somewhere like Stratford I think they would have had some serious objections."

Palace have surveyed numerous new stadiums with a view to costing their project, including that of their traditional rivals, Brighton.

"Brighton's is a fantastic stadium," he said.

"I'd be lying if I said we are not al ljealous of it.

"They are our great rivals, and they are really kicking on."

Parish laughingly denied the suggestion that Palace had planned the move to help out their long-time supporter and season ticket holder Ed Warner, chairman of UK Athletics.

"No," he said with a grin.

"It's a lot of effort to do that."

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January 2011: Exclusive - UK Athletics chairman backs move to turn Crystal Palace into football stadium
January 2011: Tottenham plan to move into Olympic Stadium suffers major setback with new Crystal Palace plans