The FA should not be selling Wembley at all, let alone for £600m | Richard Williams

Apr 30, 2018

Price is not right but more relevant than the lack of control over the stadium’s future is can we really trust football’s governing body to oversee the reinvestment into the grassroots game?

It takes some doing to sell a piece of London property for less than it cost you 10 years ago, a decade in which house prices in the capital have risen, according to the Office of National Statistics, by an average of 100%. Yet this magic trick is what the Football Association seems to be on the brink of pulling off, in selling a home that cost more than £800m to the Pakistani‑American billionaire Shahid Khan for around three-quarters of that sum.

No wonder Ken Bates was apoplectic. “You never sell your freehold – it’s your home,” the former Chelsea chairman exclaimed on being told of the deal to sell Wembley. To find oneself on the same side as Bates is a remarkable side-effect of the FA’s sudden announcement. And on that of Sir Dave Richards, the former chairman of the Premier League and, like Bates, once a prominent member of the FA board. But their point is a powerful one, as those millennials waiting for their parents to die in order to be able to own a house will confirm.

Tags: Football Football politics Sport The FA Wembley stadium