Tottenham stadium: Wembley and Milton Keynes now the only options for Spurs move

 
Tom Collomosse4 April 2015

Tottenham are considering whether to play home games at both Wembley and Milton Keynes while work is carried out on their new stadium.

Spurs will have to spend the 2017/18 campaign away from White Hart Lane before moving to their new £400million, 56,000-seat arena, which they plan to do in time for the 2018/19 season.

The minutes of the Spurs board’s latest meeting with members of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust, which was held this week, indicate that the club are examining only two venues for their year away from White Hart Lane: the national stadium and Stadium MK. The latter is home to League One club Milton Keynes Dons.

According to these minutes, Upton Park and the Olympic Stadium — respectively the current and future homes of West Ham — have been ditched.

The document, which is published on the Trust’s website, says: “Regarding the ground share, at the last meeting in November, there had been four options for Spurs’ temporary home: Upton Park, the Olympic Stadium, Wembley and Stadium MK.

“Two of those options had been removed leaving Wembley and Stadium MK as the only possible destinations at this stage. The move away would be for one season. No decisions have yet been made and discussions are ongoing over the ground share.”

Standard Sport first revealed on April 4 last year that Wembley and Milton Keynes were among the options the club were contemplating. They may choose to play the majority of their home fixtures at Stadium MK, whose capacity is expected to be 32,000 by the time Spurs would move in.

Yet for the most high-profile matches, such as major London derbies or games against the Manchester clubs or Liverpool, Spurs are to look at using Wembley. The stadium holds 90,000 and Spurs would need the FA’s blessing to play home fixtures there. Arsenal used the venue for their home Champions League matches in 1998, with reports at the time indicating they earned more than £1m for each of the three games.

In the minutes on the Trust’s website, it is also recorded that…

The working date for the new stadium opening was August 2018 [something about which Spurs are increasingly confident]. The working date for moving out of White Hart Lane was mentioned as May 2017, [meaning] two more seasons in the current stadium.

Last May, THST (Spurs Trust) had secured support for Safe Standing from THFC. This was revisited, with THFC again confirming they had no issues with standing areas in the new stadium… should legislation change. T HST also raised the question of singing areas in the new stadium. THFC were in favour of this.

The impact of the stadium project on future transfer budgets was raised. A certain percentage would be ring fenced and impact would be minimised as much as possible.

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