Rogge bucks trend by questioning Beckham?s Olympic polling power

Jacques Rogge appears to be labouring under a misapprehension. To judge by the comments he made in London this week, the president of the International Olympic Committee seems to believe that sport is bigger than David Beckham.

For the sake of argument, let's assume he has a point.

The notion that the man who used to wear braids and play football for Manchester United might become a roving ambassador in support of London's bid for the 2012 Games was floated a couple of weeks ago after Barbara Cassani, the former head of Go Airlines, was chosen as chair of the London Bid.

Initial reaction in IOC circles - there are five of them, and they're interlinked - was unfavourable, and Dr Rogge has made it clear that nothing has changed. "We are not impressed by big names," he said, with patrician disdain, adding that Beckham's presence would not add a single vote to London's cause.

Logically, it is true, there is no sense in a footballer championing Britain's Olympic bid, given that no British team has taken part in the Olympic football tournament in more than 40 years for fear that the boundaries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland might become blurred in the minds of senior football administrators.

That said, Beckham's presence in a London charm offensive would be no more anomalous than that of Bobby Charlton's in the Manchester bid for the 2000 Games. When Bob Scott and his team arrived for the vote in Monte Carlo 10 years ago, Charlton was playing at centre-forward.

If Rogge is to be believed - and he comes across as a very credible leader - then Beckham is unlikely to have any greater pull with the average IOC member than Charlton did.

But there are those within the British Olympic circles who believe that the man who used to wear sarongs will be an asset to Cassani and Co in a more domestic context, generating interest in the bid and, perhaps, encouraging the great British public to back it by buying specially dedicated Lottery tickets.

Much has changed since those desperate days the Manchester team endured back in 1993, when Scott saw a promised fistful of votes turn into a handful of dust. Since the whistle was blown over Salt Lake City's securing of the 2002 Winter Olympics back in 1999, individual IOC members no longer get to visit bidding cities in order to be persuaded of their rich potential. That job is now carried out by an Evaluation Committee, and Rogge reiterated in London that there would be no going back on the new policy. ("Let's please forget about these visits. They're a waste of time and money.")

The man at the top, too, has changed, and although Rogge insisted this week that his priorities as president were no different to those of his predecessor, Juan Antonio Samaranch, his contention was weakened by his subsequent statements that he might be focused more on athletes' welfare as a former athlete himself. And - oh yes - he was probably focused a bit more on the issue of doping.

For all that, it became increasingly clear, as Rogge was questioned on London's behalf over a succession of moot points, that he has inherited the Samaranch role as a high priest of international sport.

Instruct us, Wise Belgian, how will the Olympic gods look upon London's destiny if Crossrail is not in place by 2012? Enlighten us, Oh Kindly Benefactor - how matters it that London hosted a summer Games more recent than Paris? And, anent the Olympic Village, we beseech guidance on the location most favourable to the Voting Ones, whom we must seek to please, now, always and forever, until we bag the Olympics?

As Rogge addressed each anxious enquiry in turn, his message was mystical in tone. "Focus on the content, and not the appearance," he said. "What matters in the end is the quality of the bid."

Cassani, meanwhile, newly inducted into the Olympic Way, was taking careful note from her position three seats along from the president.

The previous week she had taken the opportunity to attend the IOC Session in Prague, where Vancouver had won a close vote to host the 2010 Winter Games.

Asked what she had learned from her experience, London's Bid leader was candid. Admitting that witnessing what she described as the "agony and the ecstasy" of the voting had been fascinating, she added that the most fascinating feature for her had been watching the reactions to the vote.

"What I took from it was how all of the efforts of trying to predict the results were really for naught," she said. "It comes down to the moment when all of the IOC members push the button. My job is to put together the best bid and not to second guess the other cities or the voters' preferences. I knew that intellectually before I went, but having come away I feel even more strongly that there are other considerations but they are not within my control."

Cassani's Olympian efforts have only just begun. But that sounds like wisdom.