News emerged earlier this week that Spurs had linked up with entertainment giant AEG to lodge a bid to takeover the Olympic Stadium.

The move outraged rival bidder West Ham when it seemed Spurs was looking at the Stratford site as its favoured option despite being granted planning permission last week for a new 56,250 seater stadium in Northumberland Park.

But a Spurs statement said: “We are aware that coverage of comments made by AEG have been interpreted by the media in various ways concerning the Club’s position in respect of the Northumberland Development Project and the Olympic Stadium site.

“We should like to make two things absolutely clear at this stage: firstly, we have registered an interest in the Olympic Stadium site in order to keep our options open going forward given the early stages we are in with the Northumberland Development Project scheme.

“This is a very preliminary stage and a Pre Qualification Questionnaire was completed jointly with AEG in order to meet the deadline for registration; Secondly, we continue to progress the application for the Northumberland Development Project with Haringey Council and will continue to do so with a view to achieving full consent.

“We have not changed our position and shall not do so without due consideration and consultation.”

The clarification should calm down West Ham and UK Athletics chiefs who are angry about Spurs’ plans to remove the running track from the Olympic Stadium.

West Ham will keep the track because the cost of installing sliding seats to cover it is prohibitive.

One club source told the Enquirer: “The athletics people are adamant the track stays so we looked at options used in other European stadiums like retractable seating but the cost is huge.

“The stadium will cost £150m to convert to a football ground already because there is hardly any corporate entertainment space.

“Currently it will hold about 400 corporates which is nowhere near enough so the rebuilding task is massive.”