Olympic Games Bids for 2012: Several cities outside London are expected to be confirmed as Olympic football venues when the blueprint for the British capital's bid for the 2012 Games is unveiled today.
The new Wembley stadium is in line to host both the men's and women's finals and other cities set to be involved should London win the bid are: Cardiff (Millennium Stadium), Glasgow (probably Hampden Park), Manchester (Old Trafford), Newcastle (St James' Park) and one other London ground - possibly Arsenal's new stadium at Ashburton Grove.
There have also been suggestions that Windsor Park in Belfast could be included and that possibility will be confirmed today.
FIFA have already indicated that a British team may be allowed to enter the football tournament - but not with a mix of English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish players.Football's world governing body wants the home nations to have a mini play-off to decide on a representative and that system could also win support from the Welsh and Scottish FAs who have until now been against playing in the Olympics in case it undermined their separate status within the game.
London 2012 chairman Barbara Cassani will formally unveil the detailed plans for the Games at a ceremony in Covent Garden today which is expected to be attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
All nine cities bidding for 2012 had until today to submit responses to a detailed questionnaire, the first major milestone of the campaign. The questions covers all aspects of the plans including venues, hotel numbers and even whether governments are willing to bring in new legislation on security issues.
One of the key questions emerging is how the event will be funded in the capital.
Among other sources the team hopes to raise £750 million from their own series of Olympic lottery games which will be run by Camelot, the national lottery operator.
An Olympic lottery bill is in its second stage in the House of Commons but the London bid organisers have been told by the IOC that they will not be allowed to launch their lottery until July 2005 when the host city of the 2012 games will be decided.
There are fears that the BOA lottery could lead to money being diverted away from the official Olympic lottery.
London and Paris are the bookies' favourites for the 2012 Games, though Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and New York have strong-looking bids. The other cities are Leipzig, Moscow, Istanbul and Havana.
The London bid team are aiming for a compact Olympic zone based in Stratford in the east of the capital which will be the venue for the Olympic stadium, village and aquatics centre.
Today's launch will announce which other parts and landmarks of London would be used, and which other cities in Britain would host the football tournament.
Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, believes most of the nine bidding cities will pass this first hurdle and those that progress will be announced as candidate cities in May. The 126 IOC members will make a final vote in Singapore in July 2005.
London remains second favourites with the bookies behind Paris with Rio springing into third place, mainly due to the fact that it is being backed because a South American country has never staged an Olympics.
Ladbrokes are offering: Paris 11 to 8, London 5 to 2, Madrid 6 to 1, New York 8 to 1, Rio 8 to 1 (from 14 to 1), Moscow 16 to 1, Leipzig 25 to 1, Istanbul 33 to 1, Havana 100 to 1.
Meanwhile, the British Olympic Association is considering a lottery game to help raise funds for athletes taking part in this summer's Olympics in Athens. If the BOA lottery proves a success it will also be used to help fund athletes taking part in Beijing in 2008 and the 2012 games.
BOA officials are hoping their lottery can be launched as early as this summer. They plan to set up a society lottery, usually run by charities and special interest groups. Under society lottery rules a maximum of £10 million per year can be raised, with tickets costing no more than £2 each.
The BOA estimates it requires at least £16 million for each four-year period to fund its Olympic team.
The US, meanwhile, is to install radiation detectors at seven sites across Greece after Athens turned to Washington for help defending this summer's Olympics against the threat of a potential dirty bomb.
The prospect of a radiological attack during the world's premier sporting event dominated talks in Washington yesterday between the Greek public order minister, Giorgos Floridis, and the heads of the CIA and the FBI.
The detectors, to be installed by the US national nuclear security administration, will be set up at border crossings in an attempt to detect trafficked nuclear material. Greece has one of the longest - and most porous - frontiers in Europe.
Nearly 80 per cent of Greeks have told pollsters they fear a terrorist attack is "inevitable" during the games, in which a record 201 countries will take part, attracting two million spectators. The Greek government has announced it will deploy an extra 10,000 troops in addition to the 40,000 security personnel and police it has assigned to protect the event - three times the number at the last summer Olympics in Sydney.
