Spurs granted extended Wembley stay at the cost of stadium capacity

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English football club Tottenham Hotspur have been granted permission by the Football Association (FA) to extend their indefinite usage of England’s national stadium Wembley as their home ground for the remainder of their home games this season, amidst construction delays and other stadium crises.

 

After being allowed to spend the entirety of last season’s home games at Wembley National Stadium, in lieu of Spurs’ construction of a new one at White Hart Lane, the Premier League club were supposed to move into their new 62,062 seater stadium at the start of this year’s campaign after crossing the initial deadline of September. However, construction delays and construction safety measures being out of order rendered the club unable to do so and in turn had to apply for an extension in October.

While FA has reached an agreement with the club to do so, the clause of the agreement states that a reduced capacity cap will be put into effect which will see the Spurs’ games at Wembley with less than its 90,000 capacity, barring a few exceptions. A statement issued by the FA says, “We have made a submission as a contingency on behalf of Tottenham Hotspur to Brent Council for a variation to the event cap which if approved would come into effect from late January, for their matches to be played at a capacity of 62,000, with limited games at 90,000.”

The club’s statement on their official website read, “Whilst Wembley National Stadium Ltd has been able to assign us a number of full capacity games, the restriction on the number of full capacity events available to WNSL each year means that our remaining Premier League fixtures after Chelsea will be capped at 51,000 unless otherwise advised.”

It has been reported that Tottenham won’t be able to plan any moves at least until January 2019.