Wembley Stadium may not now be ready to host a major event until June 2007, over a year after last May's FA Cup Final, which had been due to re-open the arena, but which had to be moved to Cardiff once building work delays became apparent. Already delays have caused a number of music events due to take place at the venue to be moved elsewhere, including Take That, Stones and Robbie Williams gigs.
The June 2007 date comes from the company building the new stadium, Multiplex (who have been blamed for most of the delays so far), although they said that the vast majority of their own work on the stadium was now done, and most of what remains to be done, including the holding of test events in order to secure relevant licences, was the responsibility of Wembley National Stadium Ltd. A spokesman for Multiplex told reporters: "Unless and until WNSL hold and successfully complete this series of test events... Multiplex will be prevented from achieving practical completion". Citing their own analysis, the statement continued: "it is unlikely that the stadium will be able to hold a test event for 90,000 spectators before June 2007".
However this contradicts a statement made by WNSL themselves earlier this week when they admitted that the latest deadline for completion, September, will not be reached. However, they said they thought the venue would be open within the year. But if Multiplex's estimates are right the stadium will miss out on hosting the FA Cup Final once again.