"Wembley Stadium set to be SOLD by FA in astonishing £800m deal"

Acole9

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Wembley's biggest problem are those bloody seats near the tunnel that are 90% empty for the first and last 10 minutes of every bloody half of football. It looks awful and tin-pot. Positioning it directly opposite the hard camera makes important, high profile games look as if they're being played in near empty stadiums.
I've always noticed that, poor planning indeed. I'm guessing they're corporate?
 

Skills

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How does an NFL franchise based in London work with regards to UK/EU employment law? I'm pretty sure some of the NFL trades where they just pick up and move a player and his contract across to a different team violates a few different employment laws.

Or are the contacts essentially owned by the NFL and not the franchise?
 

edcunited1878

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Clearly, he is an extremely intelligent businessmen.

But that doesn't mean he can't make a wrong call. They all do.

I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone thinks an NFL team in London is going to be some sort of cash cow that would pay for this sort of deal.

It will NOT pick up mainstream popularity. Sure, it doesn't need to to be successful. But for 8 home games to pay for a stadium that doesn't currently pay for itself with many more than that... I don't see it.

The NFL London team idea will be utterly underwhelming in terms of the financial, societal and sporting impact they are hoping for.
From a broadcast and property ownership point of view, it is a boon for the NFL. I and many agree, logistically and fundamentally, it'll probably be a disaster.

But Wembley is viewed as a multi use venue. It's a risk Khan and the NFL are willing to take. If anything, they'll learn about international growth first hand and use it as a huge negotiation piece. The Jaguars and NFL have been in London for 10 or so years now. It's a calculated move.
 

Carl

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Go ask any football fan in the world what "Wembley" is.
Why don't you tell me what it is? At the minute it's just a name given to a new stadium. It's a wonderful stadium, but that's all it is.
 

Tony Babangida

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“The home of football” sold to play gridiron. It seems wrong to me.

Ken Bates had it (surprisingly) right when he said:

“The ground does not belong to the directors of the FA; they are custodians. It belongs to the English fans and their children, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
 

endless_wheelies

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What Wembley was.

Nowadays, different story.
Why don't you tell me what it is? At the minute it's just a name given to a new stadium. It's a wonderful stadium, but that's all it is.
The official successor to the original - the name alone commands reverance. Maybe the stadium itself needs more time to witness its own history but it being called "Wembley Stadium" is the only justification I need to give.
 

RedTiger

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I think they should take the deal:

1) Having a national stadium is nothing more than ego and tradition, many other much more successful nations don't have one
2) How many coaches could they train and players could they produce for 800 million? I don't think its outlandish to suggest that this money, if invested properly, could result in tournament wins
3) Many people, once the true cost of Wembley came to light, were of the opinion we shouldn't have bothered and invested the money in the actual game, not bricks and mortar. It was only we were so deep into it we have no choice but to continue. We have the chance now to roll the clock back and for an inflation driven loss of say 100-200 million (its not my money or your money, who really cares)?

So as long as the FA get a clause in the contact to guarantee certain usage (cup finals, England games) for a good duration at a fixed cost, I'd take the deal and focus on the fecking game, not the fecking buildings.
100%
 

KM

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Is NFL really becoming that popular in UK?
 

hanovercigars

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Is NFL really becoming that popular in UK?
It's becoming more and more popular. It started with just one game in London in 2007. There are now 3 games in London every year, which is sold out. I have been to NFL games in London and the USA. Going to an NFL game, particularly in the USA, is an amazing event, the franchises put on a lot of activities and entertainment surrounding the actual match. I disagree with people who say the atmosphere is poor. However I do think it is still to early for a team to be based in London permanently.
 
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Carl

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The official successor to the original - the name alone commands reverance. Maybe the stadium itself needs more time to witness its own history but it being called "Wembley Stadium" is the only justification I need to give.
That's just a name though. How many times would it have to be knocked down and rebuilt for the name not to matter anything?

I just don't get it. It's the stadium that had the history, not the name. If old Trafford was to be renamed it would be shit but the history would live on in the fiber of the building.
 

endless_wheelies

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That's just a name though. How many times would it have to be knocked down and rebuilt for the name not to matter anything?

I just don't get it. It's the stadium that had the history, not the name. If old Trafford was to be renamed it would be shit but the history would live on in the fiber of the building.
It can be knocked down and rebuilt as many times as you like. It's called legacy.
 

redshaw

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Wembley's biggest problem are those bloody seats near the tunnel that are 90% empty for the first and last 10 minutes of every bloody half of football. It looks awful and tin-pot. Positioning it directly opposite the hard camera makes important, high profile games look as if they're being played in near empty stadiums.
Yeah, I've seen them stay empty for longer as well.

Those ugly shop front style shutters in each corner were another mess up. They try to cover them up now with banners but they should be in the other corners and be out of sight for the main camera. Not a thought was given in the planning it seems.

From the outside and the aerial shots the stadium looks kind of ugly dull and grey now. I mean don't get me wrong, its a decent large stadium overall but could've been so much better.

Regarding the sale. There should be a very long contract of having FA Cup finals, major international games and future tournaments to be staged at Wembley.

This also got me thinking of Old Trafford again. We could expand to 90k or we could build a super new 90k stadium and potentially be an alternative to Wembley sometimes.
 

DanClancy

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How much do the FA still owe on Wembley and how many years left on the loan?
 

Tommy

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G Nev spot on.

Struggling to disagree with him to be honest. Yeah, maybe there is a bit of sentimentality & pride involved in being one of the few countries to have our own national stadium, but when he puts the numbers into context, surely that money can be raised elsewhere easily enough... £70m a year, which like he says, is a mere 25% of agent fees. It's a 3.5m smaller payment for each PL club, who are earning absolutely astonishing money anyway.

I was a bit nonplussed by this news originally, but hearing it put into perspective makes me firmly believe we should find that same funding elsewhere in a way that's sustainable beyond a slight 10-15 year boom.
 

ivaldo

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Lovely sentiment but a bit naive. Does he think there will be no consequence in taxing agents fees? Is it viable? Is it even enforceable?
 

Rado_N

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Struggling to disagree with him to be honest. Yeah, maybe there is a bit of sentimentality & pride involved in being one of the few countries to have our own national stadium, but when he puts the numbers into context, surely that money can be raised elsewhere easily enough... £70m a year, which like he says, is a mere 25% of agent fees. It's a 3.5m smaller payment for each PL club, who are earning absolutely astonishing money anyway.

I was a bit nonplussed by this news originally, but hearing it put into perspective makes me firmly believe we should find that same funding elsewhere in a way that's sustainable beyond a slight 10-15 year boom.
Agents are a convenient boogy man, but if he's suggesting they are made to pay some kind of tax in place of the proceeds of selling the stadium that's absolutely nonsense.

Not all agents are Jorge Mendes or Mino Raiola, why should they all have to cough up 25% (which is far from the laughable categorisation of "mere") of their top line income?
 

Josep Dowling

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Agents are a convenient boogy man, but if he's suggesting they are made to pay some kind of tax in place of the proceeds of selling the stadium that's absolutely nonsense.

Not all agents are Jorge Mendes or Mino Raiola, why should they all have to cough up 25% (which is far from the laughable categorisation of "mere") of their top line income?
I think it’s more of a suggestion. If anything the Premier League clubs should be funding the grass roots with the amount of money each club is earning. Most wouldn’t even sign a player for £3.5m or less each these days.
 

jymufc20

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I think it’s more of a suggestion. If anything the Premier League clubs should be funding the grass roots with the amount of money each club is earning. Most wouldn’t even sign a player for £3.5m or less each these days.
Why should they ? That's the FA's department.
 

FromTheBench

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Because they make an absolute fortune and if funded properly it would actually benefit the top clubs.
The top clubs do run academies and schools etc.. And fun that helping in player development.

What other grassroots should they fund? I am confused here.

And the lower leagues also do get part of TV revenue and also from cup competitions.
 

NinjaFletch

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I'm not hugely against the idea of selling Wembley nor for the proposed purpose, I just don't understand why a deal that values the stadium at £100m less than when it was built is being given any serious consideration.
 

Brophs

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Agents are a convenient boogy man, but if he's suggesting they are made to pay some kind of tax in place of the proceeds of selling the stadium that's absolutely nonsense.

Not all agents are Jorge Mendes or Mino Raiola, why should they all have to cough up 25% (which is far from the laughable categorisation of "mere") of their top line income?
I don't think agents should be made to pay any sort of levy, because, essentially, you're either veering into restraint of territory, or worse again, artificially inflating the prices again, so that the agent doesn't lose out. Personally, I can see some logic to making clubs declare all transfer fees and payments to agents and then making them pay into a central fund a % of the monies paid to agents in that year. It would, in theory, have the effect of forcing them to actually attempt to bring down the levels of fees paid to agents and would, hopefully, reduce the dependence on them in time.

Far from a perfect solution, admittedly, but with the riches swilling around the PL, they could do much worse than attempt to redistribute some of that.
 

Brightonian

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Lovely sentiment but a bit naive. Does he think there will be no consequence in taxing agents fees? Is it viable? Is it even enforceable?
The specific suggestion is not his point. His point is that there are monstrous amounts of money floating around in football. If the FA need to sell the national stadium to get the relatively small, short-term bump of £500m or whatever the number is so they can actually do their job and provide kids around the country with good pitches to play on, they're not doing their jobs properly. They need to look at the whole host of ways they could be making football pay something back to the people whose hard-earned money is what makes everyone in the industry filthy rich in the first place.
 

Tony Babangida

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Gary Neville is right, there’s so so much money in the Premiership that selling Wembley should not be the first option to generate money for funding grassroots football. It’s short-termism that has unfortunately become the norm for how our country is run.
 

ivaldo

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The specific suggestion is not his point. His point is that there are monstrous amounts of money floating around in football. If the FA need to sell the national stadium to get the relatively small, short-term bump of £500m or whatever the number is so they can actually do their job and provide kids around the country with good pitches to play on, they're not doing their jobs properly. They need to look at the whole host of ways they could be making football pay something back to the people whose hard-earned money is what makes everyone in the industry filthy rich in the first place.
Which is fine, and a sentiment almost everyone agrees with. He doesn't need to specify agents in that case because it simply won't work. What we need are actual figures and solutions.
 

Brightonian

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Which is fine, and a sentiment almost everyone agrees with. He doesn't need to specify agents in that case because it simply won't work. What we need are actual figures and solutions.
He mentioned two or three different examples to briefly give a sense of the variety of ways that money might be levied on football's riches. Gary Neville is obviously not the person to specify the solutions, but it's perfectly valid for him to point out examples of the type of thing that might be done. And levies on agents fees really isn't that outlandish a suggestion, people within football's managing structures have mentioned the idea themselves numerous times.
 

ivaldo

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He mentioned two or three different examples to briefly give a sense of the variety of ways that money might be levied on football's riches. Gary Neville is obviously not the person to specify the solutions, but it's perfectly valid for him to point out examples of the type of thing that might be done. And levies on agents fees really isn't that outlandish a suggestion, people within football's managing structures have mentioned the idea themselves numerous times.
They have and it hasn’t happened for a reason. You think Agents are just going to take it on the chin? Throwing out random suggestions isn’t what we need. I’m deeply embroiled in another unrelated debate that’s going the same way. What we need is viable solutions not heartfelt declarations and half baked ideas. That will change nothing.
 

Brightonian

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They have and it hasn’t happened for a reason. You think Agents are just going to take it on the chin? Throwing out random suggestions isn’t what we need. I’m deeply embroiled in another unrelated debate that’s going the same way. What we need is viable solutions not heartfelt declarations and half baked ideas. That will change nothing.
It's neither. He's simply illustrating the undeniable point that there are huge, huge sums of money floating around in football, so if the FA is reduced to selling the national stadium for relative peanuts, they're not doing their key job properly: that is, to make football an asset for the people of this country.

You make out that Neville's point is worthless if it doesn't contain the specific, concrete solutions to the problem. But that's obviously nonsense: currently, the plan is to sell the stadium. He is convincingly making the argument that this would be a mistake. If he and others making the same argument change the FA's mind, then that is job done. It will then be up to them, the governing body, to come up with the specific, concrete solutions. Unless you're suggesting that it's a good idea to outsource that job to Gary Neville, Sky pundit?
 

DannyCAFC

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I don't think levvying agents fees will work, 25% is a massive amount and there's too great a disparity between the top agents and the rest IMO for it to work, plus as these guys can work across the globe, it will possibly have a detrimental effect on the players we can bring to the PL if the top clubs across Spain, Italy, Germany and France can afford to start paying the agents more than PL clubs.

However, the prize money thing is spot on. PL clubs get an absolute fortune anyway compared to teams in other leagues, and it would only require around a 3% cut for all clubs to cover this apparently £70m hole he is mentioning, I'd even go a bit further and cut it by 5%.
 

ivaldo

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It's neither. He's simply illustrating the undeniable point that there are huge, huge sums of money floating around in football, so if the FA is reduced to selling the national stadium for relative peanuts, they're not doing their key job properly: that is, to make football an asset for the people of this country.

You make out that Neville's point is worthless if it doesn't contain the specific, concrete solutions to the problem. But that's obviously nonsense: currently, the plan is to sell the stadium. He is convincingly making the argument that this would be a mistake. If he and others making the same argument change the FA's mind, then that is job done. It will then be up to them, the governing body, to come up with the specific, concrete solutions. Unless you're suggesting that it's a good idea to outsource that job to Gary Neville, Sky pundit?
That sentiment has been repeated countless times already, and it hasn't done a thing to change The FAs mind. Why will it make any difference now?

Nah, I'd prefer Gary Neville the pundit to stick to, you know, punditry. There are hundreds of people in football who are far better qualified to discuss this. Let them do the talking.
 
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Mb194dc

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This won't go through, Khan has withdrawn his offer this week.
Good! This was a disgraceful idea. Can't believe they even considered it, as mentioned in the thread the FA shouldn't even be able to sell Wembley.
 

Tommy

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That one deal might not go through, but who knows if another might. One withdrawn £800m offer that was seemingly highly considered by the FA doesn't rule out the possibility of a higher bid that they go for.