The news should come as no surprise that the London Legacy Development Corporation has again put back its decision on who, if anyone, should become tenants at the Olympic Stadium. The projected cost for converting the stadium into one suitable for football is growing all the time, from the initial £95m already budgeted for the conversion to legacy mode, then to £130m and now anything up to a reported £200m. While the contents of West Ham’s bid for tenancy are confidential, it is reasonable to assume given their indebted nature that the majority of this extra spend would be additional public money.

To spend that much public money on a single football club - even if Leyton Orient were to additionally benefit in some way - seems barely credible, given the parlous state of public finances and the eye-wateringly large amounts of money that the English Premier League receives in TV rights money and spends on player transfers, wages and agents’ fees every season. And that’s before EU state aid rules are considered, which they surely must be if public money is planned to be spent on such a large scale for the benefit of a single commercial enterprise.

The Olympic Stadium was designed and built as a 25,000-seater permanent bowl with a 55,000-seater temporary upper tier. To try to retrofit that design into a football stadium with retractable seating is a feat of engineering that has never been attempted, so even the reported £200m cost is debatable - if it is even physically possible to accomplish.

The Olympic Stadium was designed for both sporting events and ceremonies, it was not in any way designed for football. LOFT has said all along that the Olympic Stadium should be used for athletics and other non-football sports and events. One thing it is not is a football stadium, and the responses from LOFT members to our initial opinion-gauging show a majority against moving to it.

We note chairman Barry Hearn’s recent comments in the press about the future of the club and a possible name change. While the details of Leyton Orient’s bid to use the stadium in tandem with West Ham remain confidential, the best comment LOFT can make at this time is to warn that changing a club’s identity in any way without full consultation with supporters - and in particular removing the link to east London in its name - should be considered very carefully indeed. Everyone in football would do well to remember that, without supporters, the beautiful game is just 22 men having some exercise.

It should also be noted that Leyton Orient is not unique in suffering falls in attendance, hardly surprising given the economic climate and the ever-rising cost of attending matches. The BBC Sport Price of Football Survey released last week shows that Orient’s cheapest matchday ticket price is more expensive than any other League One club, something which surely needs to be addressed if attracting new supporters from the London area is to be achieved. The value of an Orient season ticket for loyal supporters is beyond question, but the value of a matchday ticket for those yet to be bitten by the Orient bug is less certain. The club’s recent offer of reduced-price tickets for some midweek games is a welcome start, but other innovative ticketing ideas – more innovative than changing three letters in the club’s name – will be needed to attract people to watch football, at whatever ground the club plays at.