New talks planned over Olympic dispute

Olympics: The British Olympic Association (BOA) shelved court action against London 2012 organisers today, a day after the country…

Olympics:The British Olympic Association (BOA) shelved court action against London 2012 organisers today, a day after the country's sports minister called their cash dispute an embarrassment.

A BOA spokesman said the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had been asked to suspend indefinitely a request for it to rule on the division of any surplus from the 2012 Games.

London Organising Committee (LOCOG) chairman Sebastian Coe told the Sportaccord international convention that new talks were planned.

"It is a distraction but the BOA have suspended their activity with CAS this morning, they will be meeting us at the end of the week with a proposal and our door has always been open," he said.

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The dispute has hung over a visit to London by International Olympic Committee

(IOC) officials, with IOC president Jacques Rogge and his executive board in town this week.

The IOC has backed LOCOG in the dispute, insisting there is one budget for both the Olympics and Paralympics and saying that the CAS has no jurisdiction over the case.

The BOA, facing a funding shortfall, wants their share of any surplus money to be calculated before the Paralympics are taken into account. Coe last week dubbed the dispute "spurious".

"It is an embarrassment and we need to get it sorted out," Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson said on yesterday at a Question Time event organised by Britain's Sports Journalists Association.

"But the key point about this is that it's not central to the delivery of the Games. Nothing that happens in this row will stop our athletes being brilliantly prepared and our Olympic Park being built on time and to budget."

The BOA spokesman said there had been no specific trigger for the new proposal.

"We are pleased that LOCOG has agreed to the meeting and it could be the first of several," he added. "Our goal is to work in partnership with LOCOG to reach a resolution which is acceptable to everyone."

He said there would be no deadlines or time-frame set.

"It has always been our desire to resolve this without going through the legal process," he added.

LOCOG chief executive Paul Deighton said the row, over the BOA's share in any eventual surplus from the Games and how that should be calculated, had undermined some of the feel-good factor.

"We are working on the basis that reality will dawn on everybody and get back to dealing with the facts," he said.