Spurs Blogsville

Whisper It Quietly – White Hart Lane Is Still Not Ready Apparently

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Late yesterday afternoon the tabloids were kicking up a stink over news that chairman Daniel Levy has now booked up Wembley Stadium for Premier League and Champions League games until the turn of the New Year.

With headlines such as ‘secret payment’ and some capitalisation for effect, it’s a fuss over nothing in reality in my mind.

The Stadium redesign has already seen delays as we were supposed to move back into our ground at the beginning of the year and that didn’t happen. We had booked Wembley up for use until after this weekend’s Premier League clash with Fulham and now it appears we’ve extended our use until January.

The Sun carried the piece and quoted an unnamed Football Association figure who stated.

“Spurs have taken up the option to come to Wembley for a number of Premier League home games and the home games in the group stage of the Champions League. However, it is still their intention to play their home games at White Hart Lane after the Fulham game.”

This isn’t a last-minute clash or panic, building work often overruns and the clause to extend our use of the Wembley pitch was organised within the original deal as issues at the ground presented themselves.

It’s far safer to have a backup plan in place just to cover all eventualities and yes it will cost, the cost of having no backup plan could be even more expensive. It also makes more sense to get the ground right rather than rush things to suit self-imposed deadlines.

Not perfect, but hardly the end of the world.

As the night drew on there was plenty of speculation about ‘why’ this decision had been made, but if any of those claims are remotely true, then it remains the correct decision anyway and still doesn’t justify the spin some have given it in the media.

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