Fulham owner Shahid Khan is on the verge of buying Wembley Stadium for £500m/£800m/£1b (depending on which paper you read) from the FA.
If the FA do as suggested, invest half a billion in hundreds of 3G pitches nationwide at "grass" roots level, then I'm all for it. Plus the England team would have to go on the road for friendlies etc. And we might get back to FA Cup semi finals at neutral grounds again!!!!!
"with the full £500million invested at grass roots level" This sounds good. But still, just no. Not for the sake of a ****ing NFL team. **** off you bastard.
£800m. The FA have a problem, as the funding for the stadium was based on massive ongoing revenue from corporate seats and people like me haven't renewed as it wasn't worth anywhere near what they were charging.
Friendlies, fine. Good in fact. But it's suggested all autumn games would have to be moved. Any competitive fixture should be at Wembley.
I just read England would not be able to use Wembley for their autumn fixtures. Guess there will be a lot of misinformation at this point, in various different outlets.
From the heil "The FA Cup final and semi-finals, The FA Community Shield, The FA Vase and Trophy Finals, EFL Cup Final, Rugby League's Challenge Cup final and the Football League play-offs would continue to be played at Wembley. It is only the fixtures at Wembley in the autumn that would be affected. It is understood Euro 2020 fixtures at Wembley, which includes the semi-final and final, would be able to go ahead as planned." And also "Indeed at the 1966 World Cup a game in England's group between France and Uruguay had to be moved to the White City Stadium because Wembley PLC wanted to stage a greyhound racing event." Really?
Might be a reasonable deal depending what the FA have planned for the proceeds. Having said that, there's something disturbing about our national team having to pay rent to an NFL franchise to host home games.
They should never be allowed to do this unless they build a new national stadium Not sure how long they said it would take to pay it off but read somewhere that it will now be 2024, thought it would be sooner with Spurs playing there all season and in 2 years can see Chelsea playing there!