Premier League football club rivals Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United are fighting over the right to move their ground to the Stratford venue and will know by next spring which one of them has been chosen by the Olympic Park Legacy Committee (OPLC).

"By the end of March they should say which of us is the preferred bidder and which of us they will work with exclusively for, say, six months to try and execute a deal," Sir Keith Mills, non-executive director of Spurs, told insidethegames.

"And if not, they'll go back to the other bidder."

Yesterday, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy faced angry opposition from emotional shareholders at the club's annual meeting over even the remote possibility of moving to the new Olympic Stadium.

A vast majority of fans are backing an alternative plan to redevelop White Hart Lane and turn it from 36,000 into a state-of-the-art 56,000-capacity stadium that preserves the same atmosphere as now.

But the estimated £400 million ($625 million) project is haunted by a number of issues, not least the prospect of the club being saddled with debt - with the knock-on effect of being unable to compete on the pitch - as distinct from the far cheaper option of moving to Stratford which would be partially funded by local Government.

Then there are the horrendous public transport problems in and around Tottenham which are already virtually reaching breaking point on match days, let alone coping with another 20,000 spectators.

Speaker after speaker at the meeting described how long they had watched the club and bemoaned Tottenham's current ideology.

An anti-Stratford petition is gaining more and more signatures and one shareholder said any move out of the immediate catchment area would be the equivalent of "ripping the guts out of the club".

But Levy countered: "The position on the stadium is very clear.

"Emotionally we all want to remain in Tottenham.

"In the end if we are faced with the choice everyone will be rational about it."

Tottenham's original plan was to build on a site adjacent to their current ground but Levy revealed there are still huge problems acquiring land.

"We are engaged with the owners of properties we still require to complete the site assembly – owners who are requesting, in some cases, up to five times the market value of their sites," he said.

"We have to look to do what is deliverable – and that will not just involve finances but a wide range of factors."


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