IOC intervenes in money row

A bitter row over funding between London 2012 organisers and the British Olympic Association (BOA), has led to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), being forced to intervene to settle the issue.



The dispute has escalated to the point where London 2012 chiefs attacked the BOA leadership yesterday for abandoning the original vision of staging the Olympic and Paralympics as ‘one festival of sport’.



The IOC is now expected to rule on the row, which centres on the cut the BOA would receive from any surplus cash left over after the Games.



The BOA is due to receive 20 per cent of any money left over but claim that the cost of staging the Paralympics should not be taken into account when calculating the surplus.



That claim has also been disputed by the British Paralympic Association, who has come out in support of the London Organising Committee.



BOA chairman Lord Moynihan and chief executive Andy Hunt have long complained that they were short-changed by the joint marketing programme agreement over 2012 sponsors that their predecessors negotiated with London Organising Committee in 2005.



Although the BOA has already secured an extra 6 million pounds on top of the original 27.6 million pounds, they now have their eyes on any surplus, but the joint marketing programme agreement specifically states that any surplus is judged after the running costs of both the Olympics and Paralympics are taken into account.