He said that it would not make sense to knock the 80,000 Stadium down after the Games and rebuild it for the Premiership club.

 

Armitt said that it would retain an athletics track when it is downsized to 25,000 because that was a commitment that London 2012 had made to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) when they were bidding for the Games.

 

One of the most important moments in London's bid to stage the Games came when Sebastian Coe, the chairman of 2012, persuaded Lamine Diack, the influential President of the International Association of Athletics Federations, that staging the Olympics in London would leave a legacy for athletics. 

 

It had taken several months of persuasion by Coe as Diack was understandably sceptical after Britain had failed to build a stadium to stage the 2005 World Championships despite then Prime Minister Tony Blair having promised to do so in a letter to Diack.

 

Nevertheless, convinced by Coe, the Senegalese IOC member then helped to get more African members to vote for London 2012, helping them beat Paris by two votes.

 

Armitt said: "There is no prospect of it becoming a Premiership club ground unless we wanted to knock it down, and fail to keep our obligations to the International Olympics Committee."

 

West Ham, who are currently looking for a new ground, had been in negotiations with London 2012 two years ago about taking the Stadium over after the Games but talks broke down when it became clear that officials wanted a track to remain.

 

Discussions were revived earlier this month after London Mayor Boris Johnson put the legacy of the £525 million Stadium back on the agenda.

 

But it appears that any future discussions will soon flounder.

 

Armitt, speaking at the Conservative Party annual conference in Birmingham today, admitted that if a major football club were to take the Stadium over it would need to be reconfigured so much that it would require knocking down and rebuilding.

 

He said: "The prospect of demolishing something built on such a scale would not be sensible."