New delay for £715m Wembley plan
Football finance: Damning report threatens approval of national stadium
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Your support makes all the difference.Approval of the Wembley national stadium plan could be delayed for weeks following the disclosure of the damning report on the £715m project.
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell will tell MPs this week that a further report by Patrick Carter, the Government's troubleshooter, will be needed before she can approve the final part of the deal.
The delay could lead to fresh demands to abandon the Wembley scheme, and offer it to Birmingham, the other city bidding for the national stadium. The Football Association, which owns the site, announced on 2 May that it had given the go-ahead after the 90,000-seater stadium received broad approval by Mr Carter in a review of competing bids, from Birmingham, and Coventry.
The Government needs to approve the final £20m for vital improvements to the local Tube station and road access. Ministers were attacked for dithering but Ms Jowell will tell MPs that more time is essential to make sure that the financial arrangements are not tainted by an earlier, aborted scheme. But the damning report into the earlier scheme when Ken Bates, the Chelsea boss, was chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd, could still undermine confidence.
The contents of the report by David James, a City troubleshooter, forced Ms Jowell to postpone a statement to Parliament last December, for emergency talks with the FA. His report was based on a confidential review by management consultants, Tropus.
Ms Jowell told MPs it could go ahead providing conditions were met about sound financial backing and management.The financial package includes £120m in Lottery money.
Anxieties resurfaced when an edited copy of the James report was given to the Commons select committee chaired by Gerald Kaufman. MPs privately said they were horrified by the extracts they had been able to read. He has demanded the full report without cuts and his committee on Tuesday interview the Tropus team.
The German bank WestLB which is backing the FA's Wembley project last week reported a 50 per cent reduction in its pre-tax profits. Any doubt about its willingness to support the project would come as a further, possibly fatal, blow.
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