SPECULATION is mounting this morning that West Ham United are on the home straight and have won the backing of Olympic bosses in the battle for the 2012 stadium.

SPECULATION is mounting this morning that West Ham United are on the home straight and have won the backing of Olympic bosses in the battle for the 2012 stadium.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company executives are expected to recommend to their board tomorrow that they have decided the offer from the club - which would retain the athletics track - is better than Tottenham Hotspur’s rival bid.

The OPLC board will be asked to support the view and announce the Hammers as preferred bidder.

The Government and Mayor Boris Johnson will take a final decision but are expected to back the OPLC’s recommendation.

An OPLC spokesman said it was pure speculation to say that a decision has been made. But the board does meet on Friday and there will be presentations by OPLC officers of both bids and a vote to recommend a preferred bidder.

West Ham are happy for the athletics track to be kept in the stadium and for the venue to be used for a variety of sports and concerts.

The question facing the 14 men and women of the Olympic Park Legacy Company will be whether to keep the promise that Lord Sebastian Coe made to the members of the International Olympic Committee in Singapore six years ago.

He said it was a “‘moral obligation’” that West Ham won over Tottenham, who propose to rip out the running track, tear down most of the �500million stadium and turn it into their home.

West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady claims it would be a “corporate crime to bring the bulldozers.”

She obviously feels West Ham have won. She writes in this morning’s Sun about how, in August 2014, West Ham will open the new season with an Olympic Parade…at the Olympic stadium, sold out.

She even speculates that Harry Redknapp will be England manager by then, and Mark Noble will be club captain!