Yesterday Crozier said the new Wembley would "be the best stadium in the world" with spectators having more leg-room than VIPs had in the royal box of the old Wembley.
This has been a theme of the sorry eight-year-old saga: the cast changes, ministers come and go, the money required to rebuild Wembley keeps going up but the fans are always being told that the new Wembley will be the paradise they have always sought.
With up to 18,000 seats to be allocated for corporates and a similar figure earmarked for the FA’s own use there will be fewer tickets for ordinary supporter in the new 90,000 seater stadium.
Henry Winter in the Telegraph:
‘There is only one building project that is essential to the health of English football and it is not the hi-tech, high-cost folly of
the new Wembley, finally confirmed by Adam Crozier, the chief executive of the Football Association, yesterday. The National Football Centre at Burton, where the Ferdinands of the future will be groomed, is being built for £30 million - a 25th of Wembley's £750 million tag - and is of far greater import to England.Lord Foster's Wembley will be an architectural gem, but the game does not need it. Players are more important than bricks, steel and mortar, a principle Crozier has forgotten in committing so much FA money to Wembley.
Imagine if there had been 25 national football centres dotted around the country, gleaming dream factories for generations of schoolchildren.
Imagine, too, the thoughts of those League club employees struggling to make ends meet as the governing body lavish a fortune on one building; £750 million would guarantee the future of every professional club in the land.
Other concerns remain unanswered. Decent leg-room is irrelevant if ordinary fans cannot attend because entrance costs an arm and a leg. England's roadshow has brought good results and taken the people's team back to the people. Wembley will be spectacular but the money should have been spent more sensibly.