LORD COE is at the centre of a row this weekend amid claims that his private businesses have benefited from his role as head of the London Olympics.

Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog), has threatened legal action against Channel 4 which tomorrow plans to broadcast a six-month investigation highlighting the “real winners and losers” of the 2012 Games.

Dispatches intends to show how Coe’s enhanced Olympic status may have boosted his personal earnings on top of his official annual salary of £285,000.

Coe, one of Britain’s greatest Olympians, received almost £200,000 for private speaking engagements, product endorsements and consultancy work over two months shortly after he secured the Games for London in July 2005, according to company accounts.

The earnings were channelled into a company that was set up by Coe in March 2005 but did not start trading until the following November. A separate parent company established 16 days after London’s victory envisaged earning £850,000 in a year from Coe’s private activities, according to Dispatches.

The claims add to the scrutiny of the personal benefits being enjoyed by officials planning the 2012 Games. A senior accountant was paid £2,440 a day and Paul Deighton, Locog’s chief executive, received a bonus of £100,000. He commissioned the Olympic logo, denounced by critics as a “puerile mess”, and secured sponsorship for the Games.

Until now, criticism has focused largely on the spiralling building and security budget, which has risen from £2.4 billion to £9.3 billion.

Coe denies cashing in on the Games and says he has declared all his outside business interests to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He has instructed Carter-Ruck, the libel lawyers, to defend him.

Jeremy Lee, Coe’s agent for speaking engagements, bills the former Olympic champion as the man who “restored national pride by leading Britain’s victorious 2012 bid”. He advertises Coe’s fee as £10,000 to £25,000.

His biography on Lee’s web-site says: “Seb headed the British bid which finally triumphed over the favourites, France, in Singa-pore. Even Le Figaro described the double Olympic gold medal-list as having achieved a remarkable feat in leading the London 2012 bid to victory.” It also mentions his 12 world records and his short career as a Tory MP.

The IOC’s code of ethics prohibits Coe from focusing on his official role when he is being paid to speak in a private capacity.

A spokeswoman for Locog said Coe earned no more than £10,000 for each speech.

“If you try and book Seb for a speech he is speaking as Seb the man,” she said. “The very clear agreement that he adheres to is that he doesn’t get paid for speeches that are about 2012.

“He has been speaking for more than 20 years about his career as an athlete and politician and has been earning an income from it, as a lot of people in public life do. We believe it’s fine for him to continue doing that. This is income that he has rightly and fairly earned.”

Lee said that Coe “touches on” the 2012 Olympics, but talks mainly about his sporting achievements. He has given speeches to clients including St James’s Place, an investment company.

The peer says he has given up lucrative roles in broadcasting and turned down many commercial opportunities since he took on the 2012 job.

Coe’s private earnings are channelled into Sebastian Coe Limited (SCL), part of the Complete Leisure Group, of which Coe is majority shareholder. Investors include William Hague, the former Tory leader, who employed Coe as his private secretary.

A prospectus for potential investors acquired by Dispatches states: “SCL has a projected turnover of £850,000 for the year ended December 31, 2006.”

However, a spokeswoman for Coe said the prospectus was never ratified and that accounts to be filed soon are likely to show a lower turnover.

Newly published accounts reveal the full extent of the generous earnings of Olympic officials. The Olympic Delivery Authority, the body in charge of construction, paid £232,000 for the services of David Leather, a partner at Ernst & Young, for 19 weeks last summer. It equates to a daily rate of £2,440.

“This is ludicrous,” said Don Foster MP, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for the Olympics. “If they needed somebody temporarily they had the whole of the civil service there to support them. ”

Jonathan Edwards, the former Olympic triple jump champion, was paid £14,500 in his role as a representative for athletes on the Locog board. He was also paid £87,000 for “consultancy services”.

Princess Anne, another nonexecutive director and head of the British Olympic Association, received £4,000 for attending up to four board meetings at Locog’s headquarters in Canary Wharf.

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