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But, hired by , Lee seems to be struggling desperately to win the public opinion battle over the .

A 91Èȱ¬ London poll today suggests 81% of Londoners are against the Spurs plans to dismantle the stadium and build a football ground it its place.

Bid rivals want to use the stadium for athletics and football and our poll suggest most Londoners (72%) are behind their plans.

Now, I've known Lee for many years and he'll say it is the opinion of the movers and shakers on the (OPLC)'s Board who matter in this.

They are the ones who will put forward the name of one of the clubs for approval from London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Government.

But there's one massive difference in this campaign to the ones Lee has won in the sports world.

The , who decide on the Games, and football's world governing body FIFA, who vote on World Cup hosts, are not answerable directly to the public.

The public don't vote for them and quite frankly, they can ignore public opinion completely. They certainly seemed to when they awarded the Olympics to China and the World Cup to Qatar - in most countries anyway.

But the OPLC is paid for by taxpayers. It is jointly owned by the Mayor and the Government.

Boris Johnson certainly can't ignore a poll of Londoners suggesting voters are so vehemently against Tottenham's plans. The Mayor faces re-election just over two months before the Games and politicians don't like "hard sells".

And some of the members of the OPLC are certainly tuned into the views of the public much more than most IOC and FIFA representatives I've talked to over the years.

Lord Mawson, for example, knows more about the regeneration of east London than anybody else I've met. He works with east Londoners every day. The streetwise lawyer and sports official Nick Bitel won't be fooled by spin.

So this is a rare bidding campaign in sport where the public and especially Londoners, who will end up paying for the Park if it is full of white elephants, really matter.

It's only one poll but it certainly will have an impact.

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Londoners seem to have been forgotten in the And that's not fair.

Lamine Diack, the boss of world athletics who is very critical of Tottenham's plans to scrap the track, won't have to pay extra tax in Monaco if the Olympic Park doesn't work.

The finances of , the chairman of 2012, won't be devastated if the Park is full of white elephants.

The rich football world, including Tottenham and West Ham bosses Daniel Levy and Karren Brady, will carry on making money, whatever happens.

But, make no mistake, the council taxpayers of London will end up paying for decades if the Olympic Park goes wrong.

It's the Mayor Boris Johnson and his about-to-be-formed Development Corporation which will have to find extra cash if the venues don't make enough money. And that is likely to mean cuts to other areas of the Corporation's projects.

So, you may be a Londoner with no interest in sport at all but this decision could affect you. Of course all taxpayers across the UK have paid towards the £500 million stadium but Londoners will pay a lot more - and for a lot longer - if it all goes wrong.

Apart from , who spoke to 91Èȱ¬ London about his support for the West Ham plans earlier this month, the rest of the key figures don't seem very interested in talking to Londoners about this. They want the debate to be focused on the sport's world and the national sport's media.

I've asked for interviews with Brady and with Levy and their spindoctors clearly think it's not important to speak directly to London.

We are not going to follow their agenda at 91Èȱ¬ London. This week our reports on TV, radio and Online will focus on the people who live, work and pay tax in the capital, regardless of whether they like the Olympics and football or not.

Today, we will report on what the future holds for if a Premiership club moves into their "manor".

Tonight 91Èȱ¬ London 94.9fm will be hosting a phone-in about how all this affects Leyton Orient.

This week we will also report on what the decision means for both Tottenham and West Ham fans. And importantly, we will also report on what will happen to the area around White Hart Lane if Spurs move away.

We have also commissioned the first poll on what Londoners - and not just sports fans - think about the stadium. Later this week, we will publish its findings.

I'm not a Londoner, I wasn't born in London, I didn't grow up there and I don't even pay London council tax. But I believe Londoners must have a big say in all of this - people in Bolton or Liverpool won't be paying for this Park in the future.

And I also think people who have no interest in the Olympics or sport have a right to be heard.

I did say the battle for the Olympic Stadium would heat up this month and it certainly has.

Spurs saying they will dismantle the £500m arena and build a football stadium and the IOC .

And now calls for the government to intervene to support West Ham's plans for keeping the stadium for athletics and football.

So let's step back from all this noise and see whether it will make any difference.

And the answer is; No.

I know the people who will make this decision, Olympic Park Legacy Company chair Baroness Margaret Ford and her chief executive Andrew Altman. The will make its proposal on January 28.

Baroness Ford is an intelligent and straight-talking Scot who doesn't like being pushed around by anyone. She will take this decision based on sound business for the taxpayer. If Spurs think they can influence her with a clever PR campaign, they are piddling into the wind.

And so are West Ham by attacking Tottenham for stepping into "their manor" in chief executive Karren Brady's newspaper column.

Ford will ignore all this and focus on the taxpayer.

American Andy Altman also has the advantage of being a details man with no emotional baggage from our football or sports world. He will crawl all over these bids from West Ham and Tottenham. And he won't let Spurs claim (as they are) that they will build a stadium with no taxpayers' cash. The club will get £35 million to rebuild from public funds. That's certain.

The fact is it's all too close to call at the moment and neither club has gone over all of its details with the OPLC yet.

But a polite request from me. Can Tottenham please stop saying there hasn't been a proper public debate about this stadium?

Maybe they don't get time to watch or listen to 91Èȱ¬ London TV and radio and read my blogs but I've been reporting and blogging on all this for three years now and 91Èȱ¬ viewers, listeners and blog readers have been kind enough to send us many of their opinions.

We've seen debates in parliament, and committee hearings at Westminster and at City Hall. I know, I've been to most of them. And most importantly, Baroness Ford has spent a long time talking to key figures in London about the future of this stadium.

Sorry, you've missed Londoners talking about this regularly, guys, but there has been plenty of analysis, debate and reporting. And it's an insult to the OPLC to say this hasn't been debated enough.

And to those who want government intervention now, it's important to remember that this is a commercial process. The prime minister could intervene now but he would soon find himself in the High Court.

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The six Summer Olympics I have attended since 1988 have all had the same fault. The Olympic Parks were built in parts of the city where there was little for spectators to do when they weren't watching sport.

London 2012 will be very different. It often goes unnoticed but on the edge of the Park, Australian firm is building the biggest urban shopping complex in Europe.

It will be open later this year and I was given a tour of the facilities this week. It will have 300 shops, a 14-screen cinema, restaurants, hotels and and office space and 5,000 car parking spots.

Most importantly, the complex should create 8,500 jobs, with the hope that 2,000 of them will be taken by local unemployed people who have been trained at a new retail academy on the site.

This is a much bigger legacy than anything which will happen at the

If it works, you can imagine how people attending concerts and football or cricket matches at the stadium in the future will be able to shop before the events.

In fact you won't be able to get into the Olympics in 2012 without walking through the outdoor boulevards from the Underground and "javelin" train station. A massive will greet the world's visitors.

Some people will hate the idea of all this. In fact, I have to admit that one of the great advantages of playing sport regularly on a Saturday afternoon for years is that I have avoided hundreds of shopping trips!

But it will make the 2012 Games a much better spectator experience. There will be a huge screen on one of the streets where people can watch the Olympic action before they enter the Park. The store will also sell Olympic merchandise.

Spectators have had a raw deal at recent Games. There was little for them to do between events in and the Olympic Park in had very poor facilities. The paying public deserve better and 2012 should deliver it.

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It's fascinating to watch the battle between West Ham and Tottenham intensify in the last few weeks.

We should know by March at the latest which club will be offered the stadium after the Games. So expect some tough talking in public in the next months.

vice-chairman Karren Brady has already attacked over Christmas for what she called a "smash and grab" raid on the stadium in her "manor". West Ham is the nearest club to the east London stadium.

Yesterday, Spurs responded by appointing PR sports guru Mike Lee to promote their bid and convince fans that they shouldn't oppose what some are calling "Stratford Hotspur".

I know Mike Lee well from his days at the , and as communications director of London 2012's bid.

I should add I co-wrote his book on the 2012 bid with the 91Èȱ¬ Sports Editor David Bond - despite many rows with a man nicknamed "the Spinmeister" during the bid! David and I were working at the Evening Standard at the time.

What I do know is that he will be a formidable opponent to West Ham - and a vocal supporter of Spurs.

There are fascinating relationships going on here.

Lee used to be a West Ham director and he was involved in the first talks with the Government about taking over the stadium. And he's also going head-to-head with 2012 chairman Lord Coe, with whom he worked so closely during the bid.

In an interview with 91Èȱ¬ London (which you can see above), Coe made it clear to me that he doesn't like Tottenham's idea of scrapping the track after the Games. Coe wants the stadium to be capable of hosting major athletics championships in the future.

West Ham plan to keep the track. Coe wouldn't officially say which bid he supports but it's clear he wants a definite athletics legacy.

The double Olympic champion also tells me that 2012 are close to striking deals with to provide cheaper tickets for fans coming to the Games.

This is crucial if families from across Britain are going to be able to afford to come to the Games. This is the only way we will get a "UK Olympics".

Those of you who follow my blog will know I've been going on about this for years because I believe the Games must be for the whole of Britain.

So let's hope this now happens before the tickets go on sale in the Spring and the train companies, who have controversially put prices up again this year, do special deals for Olympic ticket holders.

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