WEMBLEY SAGA HITS NEW LOW By Tony Kelshaw, PA Sport
The Football Association are set to announce today that the first match at the new Wembley stadium will not take place until 2007.
Concerns about further delays to the £757million project are expected to be confirmed with an announcement this morning that three England matches in the autumn and the FA Community Shield on August 13 will not be played at the new Wembley.
England's Euro 2008 qualifiers against Andorra on September 2 and Macedonia on October 7, as well as an England friendly on August 16 and the Community Shield will all be played elsewhere.
It means that the first match likely to be played at the new Wembley is now going to be England's friendly against as yet unconfirmed opposition in February 2007, nine months after the original proposed opening match - this year's FA Cup final on May 13.
The FA have had meetings with builders Multiplex and Wembley National Stadium Ltd this week and have taken the view that the stadium is still seriously behind schedule.
As a result, they are ready to pull the plug on those four games at Wembley and move them elsewhere. Cardiff is likely to host the Community Shield and the internationals to be played at Old Trafford.
The FA have already announced that the FA Cup final will be at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.
Today was supposed to be the official deadline for the handover of the £757million stadium from Multiplex and the FA are not convinced by the promised new June deadline.
A statement on Australian firm Multiplex's official website said: "Substantial completion of Contractor's works is now anticipated by the end of June 2006 (previously May 2006), based upon a review of the costs and benefits of any acceleration measures."
However, three other deadlines have already been missed - and even if the handover does take place then they will need at least three months to test and commission the stadium.
Multiplex added: "Previous updates relating to programme have presumed an integrated approach with Client's works being completed simultaneously.
"Multiplex yesterday received advice from the client that it is now reconsidering whether it will or is able to continue to integrate its works, or whether it will commence these works post completion.
"Multiplex's client, Wembley National Stadium Limited, is solely responsible for determining when it starts and completes its works and also when and which events are hosted at the stadium.
"Substantial completion by the end of June will have certain works and certain activities such as commissioning and cleaning still to be completed after this date."
Meanwhile, four major concerts by Bon Jovi and Take That scheduled for Wembley in June have been moved to Milton Keynes.
The Rugby Football League are also expected to turn to Twickenham to hold the Challenge Cup final on August 26. Around 35,000 tickets have already been sold and hotels booked, so the replacement venue will have to be in London.
Multiplex have already admitted to a £106million loss on Wembley but insist that includes all the penalty clauses they will have to face for missing the handover.
Their statement declared: "Multiplex has formally advised its client that Multiplex is entitled to substantial and legitimate extensions of time under the terms of its construction contract which will extend the contract completion date until at least September 2006.
"Not withstanding that it is Multiplex's belief that it has until at least September to complete, Multiplex is targeting substantial completion by end of June."
Problems have continued to mount up for Multiplex. Stadium contractors have been holding talks with unions in a bid to avoid hundreds of workers being laid off in a pay dispute.
Last week, workers were sent home for a day after a roof beam collapsed and there have been problems with the sewers under the 90,000-seat stadium.
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