Why Wembley Stadium Has To Host Manchester City Vs Liverpool

The groundswell of public opinion was clear; having the FA Cup semi-final between Manchester City and Liverpool at Wembley Stadium makes no sense.

A train strike is planned for the weekend of the game which makes a 200-odd mile journey from North West England to the capital, for some 90,000 supporters, much more difficult than normal.

So intense are the feelings about the impending travel chaos that the mayors of Manchester and Liverpool have written a joint letter to the Football Association calling for the match to be moved to somewhere more accessible.

“Without quick, direct trains, many people will be left with no option but to drive, fly, make overly complex rail journeys or book overnight accommodation,” Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, and Liverpool mayor Steve Rotheram told the FA,

“Over the last year, we have heard the slogan ‘football without fans is nothing’ many times. If this decision is left to stand, and people are either priced out of this game or unable to attend for other reasons, those words will be meaningless to many,” they added.

The Football Association’s response to the outcry was not to move the game to a neutral venue somewhere else in the country, as was the tradition before the stadium’s mid-2000s redevelopment, but charter 100 coaches, so 5,000 supporters from the two sides can travel to the game for free.

It was a gesture slammed by former Liverpool and Manchester City strike Robbie Fowler who headlined his column in British newspaper the Daily Mirror; “Greedy FA are taking the p*** out of Liverpool and Man City fans and it is shameful.”

“It makes my blood boil that they are so tone-deaf to the needs of supporters, that they really seem to think a few free bus places is enough of a response from them to the traffic chaos they have created,” he fumed.

The truth is, the FA has little choice but to try and milk the Wembley cash cow for all it is worth.

A billion-dollar weight

Since the old Wembley closed in the year 2000, with England losing 1-0 to Germany and manager Kevin Keegan resigning in the toilets, the national stadium has been a problem for the Football Association.

First, the site lay dormant for two whole years after that final game, while English soccer’s governing body scrabbled to put a deal in place for the redevelopment.

Then, when it was agreed, the $1 billion package to redevelop the iconic location was heavily criticized. Many pointed out Cardiff’s Millennium stadium cost just $250 million to construct.

When work did finally begin to replace the venue’s twin towers with a Lord Foster-designed arch, the project itself was a disaster.

Building contractor Multiplex managed to lose nearly $500 million on the project and missed deadline after deadline.

The most embarrassing of these was when the planned curtain-raiser, the 2006 FA Cup Final, had to be moved.

Way before the venue arrived the following year, the escalating costs facing the organization were substantial.

Interest has been racked up on the loans it had taken out to pay for the ground and the need to bring in revenue to service those arrangements is a problem that remains.

According to its most recent accounts, the Football Association had total liabilities of $733 million as of 31 July 2020, which included loans of $176 million as well as an overdraft facility of $330 million.

The FA does have other costs, but the majority of the financial burden carried by the organization relates to the stadium.

A look at the accounts of Wembley National Stadium Limited, the company responsible for running the arena, hardly makes for better reading.

Even in 2019, before Covid-19 wrecked the live events market, the $133 million the stadium earned from hosting concerts, boxing, NFL, and soccer resulted in a $12.7 million loss.

That year the stadium received far more use than normal because Tottenham Hotspur also played the majority of its home games there while White Hart Lane was being renovated.

The most recent Covid-hit accounts show a $45.7 million loss and in total, since the company was founded, it has lost $294 million.

But when a potential exit from these financial commitments emerged, English soccer was quick to reject it.

The sale that never was

There was no public statement about the governing body’s financial need to keep the FA Cup Semi-Finals at Wembley, but “FA insiders” were quoted in the Sunday Times as saying they couldn’t “afford to move FA Cup semi-finals away from Wembley as it will take a decade to recover from the financial losses caused by the Covid pandemic.”

It does make you wonder, what would have happened if the $791 million bid by American billionaire Shahid Khan in 2018 for the stadium had been successful?

The Jacksonville Jaguars owner’s proposal to purchase the national stadium was pulled after it became clear support for the agreement amongst the FA’s 127-member council was split.

Despite huge sums being promised English soccer’s grassroots, the prospect of selling off the organization’s crown jewels to an American was too much for many to bear.

Khan never revealed exactly what his plans for Wembley were, but it is unlikely he would have just let it sit there. Much of the speculation at the time centered around the idea that he would seek to establish an NFL franchise in London, the American was keen to stress that another of his sporting assets, Fulham FC, would not be moving in.

Having the so-called ‘home of football’ turned into an NFL ground that soccer occasionally was allowed to use for special occasions like the FA Cup or an England game might have sounded unedifying to traditionalists. But the irony is that loaded with the debt from building the stadium, the alternative is not that different.

Many of the world’s soccer-mad nations, like Spain, Germany, Italy and Brazil, do not have dedicated national stadiums. Those that do, like Argentina, often have long-term tenants that put the venue to good use.

This is because in nations where soccer is popular enough and the population is at a level that justifies building large stadia there is little need for a national venue.

The English FA even got a glimpse of this when Wembley was shut and the national team played at different club team grounds to great success. And as anyone who’s attended a dull qualifier at the national stadium will know, a raucous atmosphere in Sunderland or Manchester is far preferable to the predictable lethargy of an encounter at Wembley.

It was only the ever-devaluing FA Cup Final that the nation truly missed having at Wembley when the stadium was shut, which begs the question does England need a national stadium as much as it thinks it does?

In his column criticizing the FA, Robbie Fowler made a point many have done before; that the continuous use of the national stadium hurts the FA Cup.

“I actually believe that the FA are devaluing the competition by playing the semi-finals at Wembley. It should be all about the final, the oldest cup competition in the world, played in the legendary home of football. It should mean something special to get there,” he wrote.

“By playing the semis there, it removes the romance, makes it less special, more mundane. Liverpool and Chelsea could go to Wembley three (or even four) times this year, and that devalues the whole experience.”

The trouble is having an empty palace, reserved only for special occasions, doesn’t pay the bills.