Thursday, January 19th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

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By Tony Attwood

I was planning to put up a story today (a couple of days late) saying that a third person has  been arrested by the police detectives who are investigating allegations that Tottenham Hotspur spied on Olympic officials during its stadium bid.  This follows my earlier account of odd doings down the Lane.

Only then I find last night that the news has broken that a fourth man has now been arrested.  If they keep going at this rate half of London is going to be in the dock soon.

As reported before, among the items alleged to have found their way to Tottenham H are Karen Brady’s mobile phone bills showing details of each and every call that has been made during a set period.   The court has ruled that the records have been “unlawfully obtained”.

The allegation throughout is that Tottenham and its men spied on officials during Tottenham’s failed bid to take over the Olympic Stadium after the “Games” later this year and Tottenham H are now accused of ordering surveillance on the 14 members of the Olympic Park Legacy Company’s board while they were bidding for the rights to move out of north London into the east end.  The bid was thrown out and West Ham United’s bid was accepted, before the whole process broke down in October 2011.

Allegations against Tottenham then started to emerge including one by the Olympic Legacy Committee chair Margaret Ford during a London Assembly committee hearing last year.

Two people were arrested soon after and accused of illegal procurement of information.  Then on Wednesday last week the police said they had arrested a 57-year-old man in Cheshire “on suspicion of fraud offences”.   Now the fourth man has been found.

West Ham United and the Olympic Park Legacy Company allege information was unlawfully obtained, and Tottenham deny everything.

Challenges by Tottenham H and Leyton O, plus a complaint to the European Commission made the government realise that court action would go on for years leaving the stadium empty.  So as the recriminations and arrests started the UK government changed their policy and announced that the stadium would instead remain in public ownership.

The new plan is that the venue will remain in public ownership and rented out to West Ham (or maybe someone else, it is hard to say).  So once again, as with Manchester City, the poor British tax payer ends up paying for a ground of a club that he/she doesn’t support.

The men arrested by the Metropolitan Police’s Economic and Specialist Crime Command have been ordered to return to a south London police station in February.

Meanwhile on the Tottenham front the trial of Tottenham media darling “HR” is eagerly awaited.  Also in the dock will be Milan Manderic.  During Mr R’s time at Portsmouth the  club racked up debts well in excess of £150 million (although of course there may be no connection between this and the accused).

Anyway, just to finish our round up of the funny ol game, and with no connection with Tottenham H, Neuchatel Xamax have been  removed from the Swiss Super League less than 12 months after being taken over by Chechen businessman Bulat Chagaev.   The accusation is that the club was suspected of using a falsified Bank of America document as a financial guarantee last year.  The falseness came to light because the document contains spelling mistakes.