Lee, chairman of Vero communications company, responded with customary sharpness to a statement by Stephen Townley, chairman of Active Rights Management, that the phrase was overused in the sporting context to the point of boredom.

"There are two words which bore me in the sporting context- Green, and Legacy," Townley, who has offered legal and commercial advice to federations and agencies throughout Europe and Asia, had maintained.

"They are overplayed so much.

"I don't see any occasion where you can stage a major event such as a World Cup or an Olympic Games without considerable wastage."

Lee, a fellow panellist in a forum tasked with considering the topic of the readiness of emerging markets to host sporting events, insisted: "I'm bored with people who say they are bored with using the word 'legacy'.

"Because it's still a very important part of any bid.

"As I'm sure the Olympic Park Legacy Company will be happy to confirm, working to get a legacy right is a tough call.

"But I personally believe this is real and living."

Lee added: "Legacy can be hard, in terms of venues, or soft, in terms of sports development.

"But I think legacy has now entered the lexicon of sport.

"If you look at some of the most recent bidding victories – the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the 2014 World Cup and 2018 Olympics in Rio, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – there is no doubt that the legacy element has been a defining factor in their success.

"I know that in Rio, for instance, the city, the Federal Government and the Government had got projects for infrastructure that were just waiting for the kind of push that the award of a World Cup or an Olympics brings. And I think emerging nations can offer more scope in search of that 'L' word.

"And the impact of the legacy that will be experienced by Rio as a result of the decision taken in Copenhagen last year will be huge.

"Legacy can take many different forms – let's not throw it away because it's been overused as a word."

But Terrence Burns, the President of Helios Partners, LLC, who has worked on many successful bids in recent years including the Beijing summer Games of 2008, and the winter Games in Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014, warned that some emerging market cities were in danger of overstretching themselves.

He said: "It may all sound fine, and look good.

"But sometimes there is really no need to spend $30-40 million over two years when you don't have a chance of winning an event.

"When you sign a Host City agreement you sign a blank cheque, basically.

"Many great cities will want to do that, almost to suspend belief, and they will do it.

"The requirements of the International Olympic Committee are so one-sided, but these cities will sign anything to host the Games.

"And I think that's wrong.

"I think it's wrong where there is a greater need for money to be spent on things like sewerage, hospitals and schools."

Lee responded: "In some cases it may be totally wrong to bid for an Olympics or a World Cup, these are very expensive, but they are only one segment of the market.

"It might sometimes be a better fit to bid for something like a World Swimming Championships, or World Half-Marathon Championship."

Asked if there might come a day when a corporate sponsor would effectively secure a bid for a major sporting event by underwriting and supporting it – something which the International Olympic Committee's major partners are expressly forbidden from doing – Burns responded that such a state of affairs would be a "slippery slope."

But he quoted Andrew Young, co-chairman of the Atlanta 1996 Organising Committee, on the subject of how the high ideals of the Olympics could go hand-in-hand with sponsorship with multinational corporations such as Coca Cola and McDonald's: "Commercialisation of sport is the democratisation of sport."

Lee added: "I think the idea of corporations creating their own events is already out there.

"We call it the Red Bull model."

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