The famed tough-guy actor thought the money spent on the Games could have been used more wisely, and called Lord Coe "a puppet"
Ray Winstone has blasted the building of the Olympic stadium in 2012 as a f**king con”.
The actor – famed for his tough-guy roles – also criticised the failure of the Games to revitalise London’s East End, where he was born.
The Sexy Beast and Scum star, 57, questioned whether Britain should have hosted the Olympics in 2012 when it was struggling to pay for essential services such as the NHS and schools.
And he likened what he called “corrupt” members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to “white-collar gangsters” and even dismissed Lord Coe as a “puppet”.
Writing in his autobiography, he said: “The building of the actual stadium was a complete f***ing con.
“It wasn’t the Olympics themselves I objected to – I really admire the athletes and the effort and dedication they put in – I just looked around at East London and thought, ‘When we’ve built the hospitals and paid the teachers to be teachers and stopped closing all the fire stations down, maybe then we can afford this, but at the moment it’s an outrageous f***ing liberty’.”
He added: “The Olympic organisation isn’t really about the sport, it’s about the building, and when I see the people who run the committee – not so much Lord Coe, but he’s a puppet, anyway – they look like white-collar gangsters to me.
“The corruption isn’t just a side issue, it’s at the heart of the whole enterprise.”
Winstone has criticised the Games in the past but his latest comments, which appear in his new autobiography, Young Winstone, are his strongest attacks to date.
Both Lord Coe and the IOC declined to comment on the blast.
