Khan says football will be the winner if FA accepts his £1bn offer for Wembley
LONDON: Shahid Khan, the Pakistani/American trying to buy Wembley Stadium from the Football Association, has described the potential deal as “a win-win situation for all the parties involved” writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Details emerged last Thursday about talks which could lead to the iconic home of England and its national football team being sold within three months to the car-parts billionaire owner of Fulham and NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars.
Possible hurdles include how local and national government agencies might recoup the £100m-plus invested when the FA bought the stadium from private ownership 20 years ago. Further down the line other NFL franchises might object to a Jacksonville’s move while Chelsea could be denied temporary tenure while Stamford Bridge is rebuilt.
On the plus side, the sale of Wembley would allow the FA to make a major investment into football at grassroots level and this has doubtless been high in the mind of ceo Martin Glenn during secret negotiations over the past months.
Khan, interviewed by Garry Richardson on BBC Radio Five’s Sportsweek, said: “This would be a win-win situation for all the parties involved. Obviously it would do a lot of good things for the FA, letting them invest in grassroots football with goal of winning the World Cup.”
He thought it would be “premature” to discuss Jacksonville Jaguars setting up home at Wembley though he had “the assurance that we’d be playing there regularly.”
Khan said he had offered £600m but the deal would be worth far more to the FA since the English football’s governing body would “retains all its national team and cup games – and those are really the ones that generate revenue for the FA and have a value of £400m. So when you add the assets they take it’s about a billion.”
He sought to reassure critics reluctant to consider the home of the English game falling into foreign hands.
Khan said: “The FA obviously are happy with the offer or we wouldn’t be at this stage discussing it. Once people get past the initial emotion and look at it with logic, [they can see] it’s good for English football, for the FA, for the consumer. I think this is a very good deal for all parties involved.
“We would be trying to run a stadium, improve the game day experience.
“It’s much more than money, it’s being a steward of a civic asset, it is about enhancing the experience. The stadium is 12 years old, it need investment, it needs more events to create more revenue. With our NFL game 70pc of the attendees are not from Greater London so that ties in with the tourism aspect and the economic growth which the NFL games do.”
Khan said he expected the sale to have been completed before the start of next season.
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