The club was accused of making secret payments to an executive employed by the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), the body that awarded the stadium to West Ham after the 2012 Games are completed.

The claims were made after OPLC employee Dionne Knight, the £84,000 ($135,000) per-year director of corporate services, was suspended after it was claimed she worked for West Ham during their bid to use the Stadium.

West Ham has said they are treating the claims made by the newspaper "with the utmost seriousness" but denied that the bid process had been compromised. 

A spokesman said: 'West Ham United can confirm the club are taking legal action in relation to allegations made in today's Sunday Times.

"We are certain of the robustness of our successful bid for the Olympic Stadium."

On Friday (July 1), as revealed by insidethegames, it was announced that Knight had been suspended on full pay after it emerged she had been employed as a consultant by West Ham.

When she started working at the OPLC she declared that she had "a personal relationship" with a West Ham employee, identified as the club's Olympic Project Director Ian Tompkins.

But she allegedly only revealed on Thursday that she had worked for the football club as a paid consultant.

In an article published by the Sunday Times it claims payments of more than £20,000 ($32,000) were made to 34-year-old Knight by West Ham United before and after they were announced as tennants of the new stadium.

They were allegedly put in place by Tompkins (pictured), who has also been suspended as a result of the allegations, and the newspaper also claimed West Ham's vice-chairman Karren Brady was aware of the payments.


Documents which include bank and telephone records are said to prove the payments were made.

They were obtained by a corporate investigations team hired by Tottenham Hotspur, who lost out to West Ham in the race for the Stadium, and shown to The Sunday Times.

According to The Sunday Times, the investigators were hired by Tottenham two days before West Ham was voted the preferred bidder on February 11.

Investigators reportedly obtained bank statements, credit reports, utility bills and telephone records for Knight and Tompkins.

Knight was placed under surveillance.

They established that four payments had gone into Knight's bank account between December and April from a West Ham United account at the Bank of Scotland, for £566 ($910), £1,302 ($2,093), £3,400 ($5,465) and £4,600 ($7,394).

They say there was a further sum of £4,800 ($7,715) in June.

When presented with the evidence, Knight admitted receiving a total of £20,400 ($32,791) from West Ham and said it was for consultancy work.

The arrangement was made two months before West Ham won the bid.

She had initially refused to say what the work was but her lawyer told The Sunday Times it was "a procurement contract in relation to the Stadium".

Tottenham had already launched the process for a judicial review into the decision before the latest revelations.

Their original application was rejected but they are now appealing.

The Stadium became hotly contested between the two clubs but West Ham won the bid after they vowed to keep the athletics track, one of the promises made by London 2012 chairman Sebastain Coe during the capital's successful bid in 2005 to stage the Games.

In February the OPLC Board had voted 14-0 West Ham as first choice to move into the Stadium after the Games.

Both West Ham and the OPLC confirmed that Knight had no involvement in the decision.

Knight has now been suspended and the OPLC confirmed they would would be investigating any possible conflict of interest.

"The OPLC has confirmed that Ms Knight had absolutely no involvement in the bidding process and we repeat that secret cash was not paid to her," West Ham said in its statement.

"Her work was very transparent and the bidding process was never compromised."

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