The sports minister Richard Caborn has been accused of pressuring a number of sports to get them to switch their support from the favourite, the Tory peer Lord Moynihan, to David Hemery, the only other candidate.

"Tony Blair mentioned it to me," said Craig Reedie, who is stepping down as BOA chairman after 13 years. "'Is it going on?' he asked. I said, 'I hope it's not happening because National Olympic Committees have [an Olympic] Charter obligation to remain independent from government but on good terms.' And he accepted that. If it has been happening I believe it will be counter-productive. The people casting their votes know exactly what they want and they will not be influenced."

Put simply, the government abhors the idea of Moynihan having such a significant role in the build-up to the 2012 Games. The peer has already stoked the fires with last month's launch of his independent review into how sport is administered in Britain. He called it Raising The Bar though a more appropriate title would have been Raising The Temperature.

In normal circumstances, the government would have been able to put the 142-page glossy document on the bookshelves and let it gather dust. But Moynihan's candidature has ensured the report and its author cannot be ignored so easily, especially his key recommendations that UK Sport and the Sports Councils in the four home countries be abolished. The production reads like an election manifesto and conspiracy theorists have speculated that that is exactly what it is. That, though, is unfair as Moynihan launched his review 18 months ago before he had considered standing for the BOA post.

The BOA election has been thrown wide open by the unexpected decision not to run by Sir Matthew Pinsent, the four-time Olympic rowing gold medallist, who was being groomed by Reedie to replace him. It created a void that Moynihan has filled and left the government distinctly uncomfortable. Caborn believes Moynihan was deliberately unsupportive about London's Olympic bid and felt a series of difficult questions in the Lords was designed to undermine the capital's chances.

The BOA chair carries with it a prestigious place on the board of the London Olympics organising committee. With Sebastian Coe already chairman, that body would contain two Tory peers, unpalatable for a Labour government. Many sports are privately outraged at Caborn's interference, especially as the BOA has always prided itself on its independence, but he has succeeded in persuading some to change allegiances.

Hemery is seen by some as tainted because he was president of UK Athletics when Caborn and the culture secretary Tessa Jowell pulled the plug on the athletics stadium at Pickett's Lock, leaving Britain unable to stage the 2005 world championships. But Moynihan was sports minister under Margaret Thatcher when she allowed authorities to sell off thousands of school playing fields.

Moynihan, who coxed the British rowing eight to a silver medal in the Moscow Olympics in 1980, is perceived as being more dynamic than Hemery and, having only recently turned 50, is 11 years his junior. Hemery, though, prefers to characterise his understated approach as more diplomatic than that of his rival. He shares Caborn's view that abolishing UK Sport and the other councils at this stage of preparations for 2012 could spell disaster and has fears that having a political figure in charge could harm the BOA's position.

"It's an awkward one for them because for years Colin has used UK Sport and DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport] almost like a whipping boy," said Hemery. "It's diplomacy versus politics."