The sale of Wembley Stadium

American businessman, Shahid Khan and owner of Fulham Football club, withdrew his £600m bid to buy the country’s national stadium, Wembley.

The FA has since agreed in principle to the sale. According to them they would use the money received from the sale to develop grassroot football in England. FA chairman Greg Clarke and the association’s CEO, Martin Glenn have been excited about the sale since April when it was announced. They could have approved it there and then but they decided to extend the decision to the rest of the 127-member council that includes every level of football in England from the amateur to the professionals.

The meeting where the final votes would be made has been scheduled for 24th of October but a non-voting meeting was held this week.

There, a lot of members were reported to have expressed their disapproval of the sale of the national stadium. FA bosses were said to have been shocked at the number of members who were against selling Wembley Stadium.

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They then realised selling it would be divisive, although they still decided to go ahead with the 24th of October votes.

Khan apparently got wind of how the non-voting meeting went and realised he would not get the majority of the votes he needed so he announced his withdrawal on Wednesday. The FA too tried to save face by coming out to say they would not be selling the stadium in the nearest future, if ever.

Now, the question is what went wrong with such a well laid plan where everyone involved was bound to profit? Well, the first thing is that a lot of English people were not happy with the fact that their national stadium, a pride of the whole nation will be sold to an individual. Majority of the members of the FA council feel that way too.

The second reason is the allegations brought forward by former assistant director of football at Fulham, a club owned by Khan. Craig Kline claimed he has evidence of “systematic corruption “relevant to the Wembley vote. He said this evidence include fraud in football, child endangerment and exploitation.

The FA has said they would investigate this. But perhaps the most damaging factor to Shahid Khan’s bid is that he is Asian. With the Mayor of London, SadiqKhan being of Asian descent and Home Secretary Sajid Javid being the same, a lot of the council members were said to have been skeptical about the public being ready for another Asian to take over such a significant and historical part of the country.

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Others feel that is irrelevant in this modern day but the naysayers were in the majority.

So Wembley Stadium, our Wembley stays in the hands of the beloved country, well, until a more put together bid lands in the laps of the big bosses at the FA.

I doubt if they would be involving the council members in the votes for that, when or if it comes!!!!!!