A damning report into the Picketts Lock and Wembley fiascos published today has criticised the British Government and Sport England for their parts in the debacles.
The inquiry by MPs describes the national stadium project and its effect on plans to hold the 2005 World Athletics Championships in London as "a mess".
Although current Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Tessa Jowell and Sports Minister Richard Caborn escape censure, the report blasts their predecessors, the Government as a whole, and Sport England - the body that distributes Lottery funding.
In its findings, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee says: "This report threads its way through the sorry and convoluted way in which a national athletics centre at Picketts Lock was plucked out of the air by the Government and abruptly dropped".
Picketts Lock in north-east London was chosen as the venue for 2005 after athletics was dropped from plans for a new national stadium at Wembley.
But last month, the Government announced it was scrapping proposals for Picketts Lock and put forward Sheffield as an alternative venue, although the World Championships are now likely to be staged in another country.
On Wembley, the committee said the Controller and Auditor General - the top Whitehall financial watchdog - should investigate the funding of the national stadium project.
Sport England comes in for criticism for providing £120 million sterling Lottery funding for the Football Association to buy the Wembley site before planning permission had even been granted.
PA