Is peace in sight in 2012 cash row?

The British Olympic Association's decision to suspend their legal action at the Court of Arbitration for Sport came completely out of the blue.

For days now it seemed the row with the London 2012 organising committee, Locog, was getting more entrenched, not less. Just last week Locog chairman Lord Sebastian Coe described the affair as depressing and argued the BOA's claim to a larger slice of the hypothetical surplus from the Games as "spurious".

But then, perhaps sensing they were running against the public mood and running out of options, the BOA signalled a climbdown.

On Tuesday, they wrote to Locog to inform them they had suspended their request for CAS to rule on the financial dispute. At the same time they requested fresh talks at which they promised to make a new offer.

And despite all the rhetoric of recent days, Locog agreed to the meeting saying their door was always open to brokering a deal out of court.

No timetable has been set but it does seem that the two sides have finally realised that while many people are still struggling to understand exactly what this row is all about, it's doing no one any good to carry it on.

So, what chance of a compromise being reached?

It is worth pointing out that this dispute goes all the way back to 2006 - in the early months after London had won the right to host the 2012 Games. Then the BOA agreed to sign over its Olympic marketing rights to Locog so it could raise money to stage the Games.

That deal was worth about £30m, but the leadership of the BOA has changed since then and chairman Lord Colin Moynihan believes they should have received much, much more. The argument centres on whether the costs of Paralympics should be taken into account in calculating any profits from 2012.

The BOA believes its agreed 20% slice would be that much bigger if those costs were taken out of the equation.

As a result the two bodies have been at loggerheads for the last year or so - long before this all broke into the public domain last month. Finding a resolution will not be easy, even if it will now take a relatively small amount of money, perhaps as little as £5m to settle this.

That's because the International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, in London for meetings of the IOC executive board this week, put his name to a judgment backing Locog's position.

Lord Coe and Locog risk losing face if they now go back to Rogge to explain they have done a backroom deal to make the problem go away.

But Rogge and other Olympic observers recognise there is potentially more at stake if the case ends up with CAS. That could be a dangerous precedent for the IOC, even though their jurisdiction is outlined in the host city contract with London.

And Locog recognise that, for all their public posturing, they have to now try and find a way to give Moynihan and the BOA a dignified exit.

So hopes will be high that these talks will bring an end to an unseemly squabble which may have little material effect on Team GB or London's preparations but which have done little for London's image over the last few weeks.

source : bbc.co.uk