Noel Gallagher delayed giving permission for Oasis tune Wonderwall to be played at the Olympics ceremony, he revealed.

The former Oasis musician turned down the chance to perform it himself because organisers wanted him to mime.

So permission was needed for another performer to sing the classic song because Noel wrote it.

He told radio station XFM: “They had to re-record it and send it to me and I did play a bit of cat and mouse with them for a few days. I took it to Friday night (10.08.12) at 10pm before I said yes, and they were s**ting it.”

They wanted me to do it acoustically, and wanted me to mime. I’m all for miming in TV shows, I love that. It would save me a lot of messing about.

“But if you’re in a stadium with 80,000 people and you’re pretending? I said I could play live and one of the organisers said, ‘It’s a big gig.’

“I said, ‘Really? I do this for a living.’”

“I’d only had a few days off and they wanted me to re-record the song, then 14 days’ rehearsals. In the end I was like, ‘I’d rather watch it on the telly.’”

Oasis split in 2009 after a huge fall out between guitarist Noel and singer Liam. Noel has since released his High Flying Birds debut solo album, while Liam and the other members of Oasis formed Beady Eye.