Phillips Idowu and Charles van Commenee must end feud, says Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards today urged triple jumper Phillips Idowu and UK Athletics coach Charles van Commenee to end their feud.

Last month, Van Commenee said he was unhappy that Idowu used Twitter to reveal he was pulling out of the European Team Championships. Yesterday, Idowu said he wanted Van Commenee to publicly apologise.

"The two of them need to sit down behind closed doors and thrash this out," said the former Olympic triple-jump champion. "Whether this involves a public apology or not, they clearly need to speak.

"It would appear they haven't done and that should have happened by now. Somewhere along the line, you guess a message has gone astray but in the grand scheme of things, the European Team Championships is not huge. As you saw, Charles wasn't that bothered [about the pulling out of] - Jess Ennis and Mo Farah didn't go."

Edwards said he is concerned now that the row could overshadow the Games. "With London 2012, the biggest event in British athletics history and indeed in Phillips' life coming up, for the good of the sport and each other they need to move on," he told Radio 5Live.