Wembley For Sale

[BaZ87]

In the last hour or so a number of reports have come out claiming that the FA has reached an agreement in principle with Shahid Khan for the sale of Wembley stadium!

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/fo...ocial&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1524742983

The FA finally cutting their losses on what's proved to be one of their worst decisions of all time to build it in the first place.

 

[BaZ87]

I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand the could work a deal that doesnt really change much with stadium access etc and it could provide huge investment for all other tiers of football from grass roots up, better and more trained officials etc. On the other hand it could stay the same and just end up going in to the pockets of already rich blokes making them richer until the money runs out, theres not much investment and theres no longer a FA owned stadium... :/

Wembley isn't making anybody money right now, the FA are still paying for it. The £500m they'll receive will go towards paying off the money still owed and the balance then reinvested. If the reports are true and the FA will retain ownership of Club Wembley then the stadium will still bring some income into the FA without the huge debt the FA currently have.

As above, the FA are cutting their losses on what was a terrible decision to build the new Wembley. It's the right thing to do.

Is it up for sale or just under offer? Have to wonder what the FA would do with the money - build another stadium?
Andi.

According to the reports, the head of the FA has been negotiating this deal with Khan and they've reached an agreement and the offer is now going to the full board for approval. And no, there won't be another stadium. Wembley will remain as the national stadium and will still host the FA Cup final and semi-finals - the FA will just be paying Khan to use it.

 

[BaZ87]

500m sounds like a lot, but BBC have stated: "The 90,000-seat stadium, which is the largest in the United Kingdom, cost £757m to build".

Am I missing something here or are the FA about to make a huge loss?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43906272

As above, the FA will still own Club Wembley which they value at £300m. I actually thought Wembley cost the FA over £800m but who knows. Either way, this deal shows us just how bad a decision it was the build the thing to begin with.

Guess it depends on what kind of price they agree on for the matches which take place there. If we're talking 6-8 games a season and they get stuck paying £10m per game it's not a fantastic deal.

These sorts of things would have already been agreed and I think it's safe to say that there's no chance that it will cost anything like £10m per game to hire Wembley. I doubt it would be even 10% of that.

 

[BaZ87]

The NFL thing is interesting because I thought Spurs had some sort of agreement with the NFL and their new stadium but talk is that Khan's NFL side could hold a number of games at Wembley.

If it means that semi-finals are played at neutral venues again, I'm all for it!

According to reports they're still going to be at Wembley.

 

[BaZ87]

The buyer sounds like hes up for preserving the history etc and keeping it going as is from most of the stories i've read about this. I always regret never making it to the original Wembley. I saw the Foo Fighters at New Wembley and it didnt particularly feel that special and every time you see a big game on TV have the opposite side is empty. (I'm assuming thats because of the corporate events where people have gone for the football second and the free booze and food first??)

Those are the Club Wembley seats and yes, it often takes 15 minutes after kick-off for the suits to finish their prawn sandwiches and take their seats.

Sorry, yeah i never actually expected the deal to be £10m/game, was more just a point that it would be ridiculous if they didn't have safeguards in place.

I'm struggling to understand the logic from Khans pov. It's a lot of money for an asset which is quite difficult to utilize i'd have thought.

There's a lot of talk on twitter that he plans to hold a number of NFL games there + of course there's income from England fixtures, FA Cup games and other events such as boxing etc.

I've just read one article which says the FA are planning to have England play at other grounds around the country if their fixtures were to clash with an NFL game.

The $1.4b seems to come from £600m up front and £400m they'll earn from games and presumably having fewer expenses.

The only reports I've read say the value of the deal is £800m with Khan paying £500m for Wembley but the FA keeping Club Wembley (all the corporate hospitality) which they value at £300m.

The deal makes sense for the FA. They're going to keep some of the income from Wembley without the running costs and be able to pay off all their debt from building the thing.

 

[BaZ87]

Levy will be hoping this doesn't go ahead as its gonna cost him massively financially

NFL wont want to go to white hart lane if it has a home in Wembley meaning they will lose stacks of money that was wasting in making the new white hart lane suitable for hosting a few nfl games

Spurs have a 10 year agreement where at least two games per season will be played at their new ground. This won't change that.

edit: furthermore, the NFL had a home at Wembley before it signed an agreement with Spurs. The NFL chose Spurs' new ground over a number of other grounds. If Khan decides to hold a number of his sides games at Wembley it's his business and completely separate from the deal Spurs have.

 

[BaZ87]

I wonder if a large sponsor has been lined up. Would make the large payment more tenable.

£500m is a lot to pay for an old stadium where you don't get the club wembley seats and hospitality.

I'd be surprised if there was a significant naming rights deal. The days of huge stadium naming rights appear to be gone - Liverpool have all but abandoned plans to sell the naming rights to the new Main Stand and Spurs, who are months away from opening their new ground, still haven't found a sponsor. Naming rights for something like Wembley or any iconic stadium with an established identity hold little value. Wembley will always be known as Wembley to anybody over the age of 10.

I guess the value of the land alone is what justifies the investment and then of course you've got the possibility of regular NFL games in the future. If they can reach a stage where 20+ major sports events are being played there every season then it suddenly doesn't look expensive at all - Spurs stadium is costing double after all. One interesting thought is what could happen with Fulham - the plot Craven Cottage sits on must be worth a bomb. Could we see Fulham moving into Wembley and Craven Cottage sold off at some point in the future?

 

[BaZ87]

£1m? More like £3-4m but you can't look at it that way. How much additional revenue has the Emirates brought in over and above what you got from Highbury? Take away the interest on the loans to fund the stadium and then that's what, in theory, Arsenal could repay. The whole purpose of the Emirates was to give Arsenal more money to spend so it's understandable that all the additional money they're now making isn't going on repaying their loan but at least some on wages and transfer fees instead.

Large scale projects in the UK seem a mixture of shady/extortionate/laughable.

I know this is hardly an apples to apples comparison:

• Millennium Stadium - 74,000 capacity - £121m
• Emirates Stadium - 60,000 capacity - £390m
• Wembley Stadium - 90,000 capcity - £800m
• London Stadium - ~60,000 capacity - ~£750m once you include the astronomical conversion for West Ham

It feels like some are getting fleeced looking at these costs.

You can't compare like for like unless the stadiums are the same and built at the same time. Wembley will have considerably more corporate hospitality facilities than the Millennium Stadium, was built a long time after and is much larger. Building the actual stadium only accounts for a fairly small percentage of overall costs, kitting it out with all the facilities is where the money goes. I can remember when Liverpool were looking to build a new stadium 10+ years ago, they looked at plans of anything from 55k to 70k capacities and iirc, they 70k plan would have cost considerably more than the plan they had for a 60k stadium.