COULD YOU MAKE THIS UP?

Both the chairman of the Football Association and the chairman of the Premier League, as well as the Minister for Sport, are playing parts in the West Ham takeover battle. FA chairman Geoff Thompson has helped to facilitate meetings between West Ham and the Icelandic party interested in buying the club, while Richard Caborn, the Minister for Sport, is supporting the rival Israeli bid.

Eggert Magnusson, the Icelandic member of Uefa's executive committee, who is fronting the Icelandic bid approached Thompson, chairman of the FA, to secure his help to set up a meeting with Terry Brown, the chairman of West Ham.

I understand Thompson, who is a colleague of Magnusson on the Uefa executive, spoke to Brown and urged him to meet Magnusson. That meeting is yet to take place. However yesterday, following a personal intervention by David Richards, the chairman of the Premier League, a meeting between Brown and Magnusson has been organised for today. But contrary to some reports, no deal is remotely in the offing. The club will be issuing a statement today on the takeover bid, possibly via the stock exchange.

Caborn's suppor stems from the fact that Papouchaldo has said that a part of his takeover would be a plan for West Ham to move into the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

Caborn would welcome that. He is locked in a bitter battle with Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, about the future of the Olympic stadium after the 2012 Games.

Livingstone wants to build a stadium that will have an 80,000 capacity for the Games, before being scaled back to 25,000 when it will become the London home for athletics, replacing the condemned Crystal Palace venue.