West Ham United say they are reporting Tottenham Hotspur to the police for allegedly accessing bank accounts and tapping phones in a dispute that jeopardises the future of the Olympic stadium.
West Ham have reacted angrily to claims that they made secret payments to an executive at the company deciding the stadium’s future at the time of its successful bid. Payments of £20,000 were uncovered by private detectives who allegedly gained access to the executive’s bank records on behalf of Tottenham, which unsuccessfully fought to take over the stadium.
A couple at the centre of the row have now been suspended: a female executive at the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), and her partner, the West Ham Olympic project director who drove the successful bid to secure the stadium.
West Ham claim that they had taken their director’s word that his girlfriend had received approval from her employers to be hired as a paid consultant by them. In fact, the OPLC learnt about the arrangement only last Thursday when the woman was contacted by The Sunday Times. The London borough of Newham, a host borough for the Olympics, is embroiled in the controversy because the executive was formally hired by a partnership half-owned by the council and West Ham.
The local authority is already subject to legal action as it faces applications for judicial reviews over its role in the stadium’s post-Olympics future.
Advertisement
Senior sources at West Ham yesterday indicated that the club, newly relegated to the Championship, was going on the offensive against Tottenham Hotspur. Officials were calling for a criminal investigation in the light of allegations of unauthorised accessing of bank accounts by Tottenham’s private investigators. Phones had been also been tapped and internet accounts hacked into, West Ham sources claimed.
The executive at the centre of the dispute is Dionne Knight, 34, from Surrey, who has been the £84,000-a-year director of corporate services at the OPLC since May last year. When she took on the role, she declared that she had a relationship with Ian Tompkins, 53, a director of West Ham, which was bidding to take over the stadium.
The sensitivity of the relationship was such that the OPLC decided that the stadium bid process must be handled from its external lawyers’ offices in the City of London. Ms Knight was based in Stratford, East London, where the Olympics will be staged.
The couple had previously worked together at Newham council, which is responsible for the Games site and West Ham’s ground at Upton Park.
Mr Tompkins, who served as the council’s director of communications, joined West Ham in 2008 and was given the job of handling the bid for the Olympic stadium.
Advertisement
The Legacy Stadium Partnership, half-owned by the football club and the council, embarked on a project to procure a construction partner after the Games. The work was put out to tender and Ms Knight won the contract.
Her boyfriend, who was responsible for appointing her, assured Karren Brady, West Ham’s vice-chairman, that Ms Knight had permission from her employers. The Legacy Stadium Partnership was aware of their relationship.
The payments came to light because Tottenham, whose bid for the stadium was rejected unanimously by OPLC in February, hired detectives to look into that decision. West Ham have begun an inquiry into the matter. The club emphasised that they had not paid any member of the OPLC for any information in relation to the bid process or received unauthorised information. They stated on their website: “The suggestion of secret cash in the Sunday Times article is absolutely and categorically denied. As such, legal action is being taken against The Sunday Times, as well as Tottenham Hotspur.”
Tottenham Hotspur said: “We are currently in a legal process and cannot comment on the matter.”