Madrid in shock bid for Games hero Coe

First it was David Beckham, now Madrid want to snatch another British icon to further the city's sporting aspirations. Seb-astian Coe has been asked by the Spanish capital to lead their bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. The astonishing offer has been made to Coe on behalf of those organising a bid that represents a major threat to London's hopes of getting the Games. It may not be for Real - but it is certainly for real.

It follows the resignation of the Madrid bid leader and is an opportunist move, because in Madrid they seem to think that Coe, despite being Britain's best-known Olympian, has been snubbed by those putting together the London bid. Certainly he has not received a firm approach to become involved.

Although former Conservative MP Coe, who now sits in the House of Lords, declines to discuss details of the Madrid overture, I understand an offer was put to him formally at a recent international athletics meeting. He declined.

Coe, 46, said: "Obviously there is no way I could become involved in any situation that would be detrimental to the London bid." Voted Britain's outstanding sports personality of the last half-century, London-born Coe, a former world 800 metres record holder, won Olympics 1500 metres titles in 1980 and 1984.

His omission, even at this early stage, from any association with the London bid has surprised many sports figures at home and abroad. In Prague, during the IOC session where London's newly appointed bid leader, American Barbara Cassani, met Olympic leaders for the first time, one member remarked: "They seem to have got it wrong. Surely Sebastian Coe should be heading up the London bid, with perhaps this lady as its chief executive."

Similar views were expressed to me in Athens recently. Coe, who has already been recruited as an ambassador for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, is a popular figure in Greece, where he has been lecturing on Olympicism in the build-up to the 2004 Games.

It appears that Coe was never seriously considered as a bid leader, despite names such as Cherie Blair being put forward. It could be that he is the wrong political hue for a Government who increasingly prefer to have New Labour sympathisers in charge of their sports quangos. There is also the existing coolness between Coe and the British Olympic Association president, Princess Anne, stemming from his involvement in an earlier attempt to get a London bid off the ground at the time Manchester was going for the Games. HRH was far from amused, labelling him "a pratley".

Although Coe says he never expected to be offered the bid leadership, he has expressed his willingness to be involved. Intriguingly, Coe had tea with the BOA chairman, Craig Reedie, at Westminster on Monday, though Olympic matters were not discussed. They met to see whether Reedie, as an IOC member, could be helpful in Coe's forthcoming bid to gain election to the International Association of Athletics Federations, which will be a test of Britain's stock at world level post-Iraq.

Despite his eminence, Coe will need all his charisma to win an election that insiders say will be "nip and tuck" because of the anti-British mood in global sport. A rebuff would be seen as a setback for the London bid.

Election to the IAAF Council could be seen as a stepping stone for Coe to a future role with the IOC, a position former president Juan Antonio Samaranch always hoped the Briton would attain. It could well be that Samaranch is behind the attempt to recruit Coe for the Madrid bid. "I would be very surprised if Seb did anything else but help a London bid," said Reedie. "For the moment he has a major battle on his hands to get elected to the IAAF, which will be his priority. After that we will have to work out with him very carefully how he is used.

"He is not the sort of personality who should be wheeled out alongside another 50 sporting icons. I think any help he can give needs to be specifically arranged and targeted." Clearly it is essential that Coe has a prominent role, for his presence in the sharp end of the bid would certainly carry more weight than that of Cherie Blair and even five-times rowing gold medallist Sir Steve Redgrave.

Cassani obviously needs someone with style and Olympic substance to back her up, and also act as a stand-in, as she has only a three-days-a-week commitment. Who better than Lord Coe, a man, who, as the Spaniards clearly recognise, knows his Olympic onions?