Spurs sweat over White Hart wait
LONDON — Tottenham Hotspur has apologized to fans over the “unavoidable” delay to the opening of their new White Hart Lane stadium.
The Premier League club has been forced to postpone the scheduled opening of the rebuilt area next month due to safety issues.
Tottenham spent last season playing its home matches at Wembley while White Hart Lane was completely knocked down, with the new arena rising in its place.
But the north London club was unable to complete the building work in time for the start of this season, meaning its home opener against Fulham on Saturday will also be staged at Wembley, in the northwest of the English capital.
On Monday, Tottenham revealed problems with “critical safety systems” meant the new stadium would not be able to host Liverpool on Sept 15, Cardiff City on Oct 6 or the NFL clash between the Seattle Seahawks and the Oakland Raiders eight days later.
Tottenham’s subsequent home game is against Manchester City on Oct 28, when the Philadelphia Eagles and the Jacksonville Jaguars are scheduled to play an NFL game at Wembley.
If the new stadium is not ready by then, Spurs could face the prospect of moving that game to Twickenham, which usually stages rugby union matches, The Sun newspaper reported.
The paper claimed the Premier League has already refused a Spurs request to move the match to City’s Etihad Stadium.
Spurs on Tuesday released details of refunds.
“Delays are common, certainly for builds of this size and complexity, however we are hugely frustrated that this has occurred with these systems at such a late stage,” said a Spurs statement.
“Whilst we would have been able to mitigate other areas, we simply cannot compromise safety. This decision was unavoidable.
“We should like to apologize to supporters for this delay. We are acutely aware of the disappointment this may cause supporters and shall now look to ensure that we minimise any inconvenience.”
A safety license must be granted before matches can be staged at the ground and that will not happen before test events are carried out.
No timeline is in place for when they will happen, leaving an element of uncertainty over when the problems will be rectified and questions over when the club will begin life at the new 62,000seat venue.
Spurs on Tuesday insisted, contrary to reports, the option to have Wembley as a contingency plan had been arranged in late 2017.
“The option was in fact exercised at the end of last year... as a sensible back-up given the nature of construction and the possibility of exactly such an issue arising,” the club added.