Hearn's cheeky Stratford bid

Leyton Orient are set to approach West Ham United with view to ground-sharing the Olympic Stadium, according to reports.

The League One club, whose outspoken Chairman Barry Hearn has been against West Ham's move to Stratford since it first emerged that the club were hoping to move across the borough have intimated that they are set to approach United with the offer imminently.

According to a report by David Smith in tonight's Evening Standard, Hearn will "seek talks" with West Ham's co-chairman David Gold and David Sullivan in an attempt to shoe-horn his club into the deal.

Meanwhile a 'source' told the Standard: "It ticks all the boxes. Why not ground-share? It already happens all over the world."

However given Hearn's vocal opposition to West Ham's move, it is unlikely that any offer will be considered by co-owners Sullivan and Gold, who were told recently that they were "overwhelmingly likely" to be awarded tenancy of the stadium by London mayor Boris Johnson.

Despite last week's deadline day for bids being delayed by eight weeks, Johnson saw no reason why that would hurt West Ham's bid for use of the stadium.

"I don’t think we should read too much into this," he said. "It is very important to get all the legal nails hit squarely on the head so that the thing does not come unstuck. That is taking a bit of time.

"I still think it is overwhelmingly likely that there will be a footballing solution and that would be a good thing. But It is very important that it should be legally watertight.

"This is a major piece of public infrastructure with big state aid implications that we are trying to transfer to commercial concerns and that is always going to evoke very complicated legal problems."