English FA’s proposed sale of Wembley is a sign of the times

The English Football Association’s proposed sale of Wembley Stadium to the US car parts billionaire Shahid Khan was not greeted by a widespread shriek of patriotic indignation, perhaps illustrating how accustomed British people are now to crown jewels being sold overseas.

Liverpool, thrillingly reconnecting with their European Cup-winning heritage and rampaging towards the Champions League final, are owned by US sports franchise billionaires, as are Manchester United, Arsenal and other grand clubs including Fulham, which Khan, owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team, bought from Mohamed Al Fayed in 2013.

Fayed sold his other London landmark, Harrods, to Qatari state funds, which also owns the Shard and many prestigious chunks of the West End. The Premier League champions and large tracts of east Manchester are owned by the Abu Dhabi ruling family after decades in which no British investors could be found to arrest economic decline.

At the same time, British government investment in its own public responsibilities has been relentlessly cut, with sports facilities, swimming pools, public parks and playing fields inevitably falling victim. Before the 2010 general election, the then shadow Conservative sports minister, Hugh Robertson, expressed displeasure at a Guardian article in which the Labour sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, proudly presented his government's record of investment in school and public sports facilities and warned that the Tories would initiate cuts. Eight years on, as Sutcliffe predicted, hundreds of millions of pounds have been scythed from local authority budgets now struggling to maintain existing sports facilities, let alone modernise or build new ones.

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Positive plan

This is the context to the English FA’s acknowledgement that it is considering a £500 million-plus (€575 million) proposal from Khan to buy Wembley, and presenting it as a positive plan because it would spend the money on improving grassroots facilities. The new Wembley was built for £757 million (€871 million) after serious financial difficulties, after the FA took ownership because its England matches and FA Cup semi-finals and finals provide the bulk of the income, and it has been a financial and administrative burden. Eleven years since the stadium finally reopened, with its new arch, 90,000 seats, Bobby Moore statue and girth of Club Wembley corporate feasting, the FA still owes £140 million (€161 million) and Wembley makes a loss after paying the interest.

The FA’s own history since it took charge of the Wembley project in 1999 has been turbulent, working through a series of chairmen and chief executives and repeatedly coming off worse in battles for governance authority with the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Scudamore. Gradually, however, the FA has focused more on the abject conditions in which the public has to play football and begun to explore the potential for improving things.

Hence this proposed deal to sell Wembley and the FA’s careful presentation of it as an opportunity to release substantial, transformational money for public facilities.

The argument is that having sweated for years to pay off the enormous debt on the new stadium, the FA has a prime asset in north London, still sucking in time and effort and whose value could be put to better use. If Khan, who has nursed a long-term project to bring the NFL and his Jaguars franchise more regularly to Wembley, were to buy it, the £500 million-plus would be released for good works. This commitment at the outset of negotiations, that the bulk of the millions will go towards upgrading facilities, is the promise to which the FA must be held and against which it should be judged.

The FA is making it clear it will still look to earn valuable money from playing matches at Wembley, retaining the Club Wembley receipts. In its most recently published accounts, for the year to July 31st, 2016, the FA recorded £56.5 million (€64.9 million) revenue from Club Wembley, 10-year packages having been sold to City firms and other corporate clients from the stadium’s opening. Last year Club Wembley packages were revamped to provide more luxury, reduce tenures to three seasons, and prices are now running from £2,148 (€2,470) for a seat per season to £11,064 (€12,724) in the One Twenty club and £37,200 (€42,784) – per person, per seat – in a private box.

Burden

The FA is saying it will retain all this income and revert to playing matches on the basis it used to and on which most national teams do: pay rent to use the stadium and keep the money from the tickets. Khan will buy out the stadium itself, make the money he can and take on the burden of its upkeep.

The public money provided for Wembley’s rebuilding and the infrastructure around it: £79 million (€91 million) from Sport England, £18 million (€21 million) from the government, £17 million (€20 million) from the London Development Agency and further smaller amounts making a total of £119 million (€137 million), will have to be repaid or an accommodation reached.

For Khan, the attraction appears to be expanding the NFL into London and ensuring the Jaguars have pre-eminent rights to be the team who play there. While the NFL season is on, from September to January, the FA has accepted that England matches will not be played at Wembley and move around major club grounds instead, a prospect many fans are likely to welcome.

During those months, traditionalists might avert their gaze from the goings-on within England’s national football stadium. But it is a sign of the times that the FA’s proposal itself is being entertained as a potentially workable idea to husband scarce resources, rather than dismissed with a cry of betrayal.

– Guardian