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New Wembley Stadium Behind Schedule as Construction Co. Multiplex Announce "Material Risk" of Deadline Failure

Submitted by Scott Harkness on Fri, 23/12/2005 - 03:16.

With just over three months to go before the new Wembley Stadium is due to be completed, fears have now grown that the new stadium will not be completed in time, with London’s mayor Ken Livingstone describing Multiplex Group's redevelopment of Wembley Stadium as a "fiasco".

The construction company Multiplex, who are in charge of the rebuilding of the historic stadium, has said there is a "material risk" that the 90,000 seat arena will not be completed in time to host the FA Cup final on May 13. Multiplex's deadline to complete the stadium is March 31st.

The troubled project has become so costly that Multiplex has warned that as much as £95m (US$165m) could be wiped from its profits during the current financial year.

The English FA already has Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on standby to host the FA Cup Final, as it had done for the past five years while the rebuilding of Wembley was taking place.

"If I was booking a train ticket right now I would most probably get one out to Wales, rather than up to Wembley," Mr Livingstone said.

"This went wrong from the beginning because people who weren't architects and builders kept interfering, changing design, the costs kept mounting."

Wembley has also been booked by the FA to host the first international match in the new stadium, when England face Hungary in an international friendly on May 30th.


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