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    The National (Football League) Stadium

    The Football Association has received an offer, thought to be worth £800m, to sell Wembley Stadium.

    Shahid Khan, the owner of Fulham and NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars, is the prospective buyer.

    #2
    I find it quite interesting that Khan is offering them 300 million quid to keep Club Wembley and the hospitality business.

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      #3
      He has quickly sought to tell Fulham fans that this is an independent venture and won't impact upon the club. They had a fight to stay in their home within recent memory so may need ongoing reassurance on this.

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        #4
        This is definitely nothing to do with Fulham, it's all about NFL.

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          #5
          Are you ready for some Blake Bortles, London???

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            #6
            Leapin' London Leopards, Batman

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              #7
              Looks like Jacksonville can say goodbye to their team now.

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                #8
                It will take him a while to assemble the necessary votes among his fellow owners, not to mention actually closing the deal.

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                  #10
                  That is a very odd statement indeed. I've been under the impression that finding teams to give up a home game is kind of a pain in the ass for the NFL, since there's only a handful of franchises in situations where that would do (both LA teams, Jax, Oakland).

                  So either he's bluffing and wants to get the Jags out of Jax entirely, or he's letting slip that the eye-watering ticket prices for the NFL Wembley games means other teams want in because it's a cash cow.

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                    #11
                    If the Rams keep winning, I don't think they'll want to give up any home games, especially with the new stadium coming. The Chargers, who will share the new stadium, still might not have the support here, so I could see them giving up a home game.

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                      #12
                      Apparently Wembley Stadium've been laying staff off since the beginning of Winter. And think about the timing of the Wembley FC logo thing.

                      This isn't the surprise that's being made out.

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                        #13
                        Just the blazers to go now...

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                          #14
                          Khan is backing out. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45893325

                          The FA dallied on this one. Should have just said yes.

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                            #15
                            Weren't there implications of bribery from a former Khan employee recently?

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                              #16
                              Ah, they were related to Fulham not the Wembley bid. Still , poor timing for Khan.

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                                #17
                                Looks like Khan had no time for the FA's rather Byzantine approval process, which included an undefined "significant majority" requirement within the FA Council.

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                                  #18
                                  He won't be able to build a stadium that big elsewhere in London though. Not that there aren't potential sites for it, but he wouldn't get planning approval. I'm left wondering if this is just a negotiating tactic from him.

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                                    #19
                                    I wouldn't even call it a tactic, he's explicitly saying he'll come back to the table if the FA get a mandate to sell.

                                    "Until a time when it is evident there is an unmistakable directive from the FA to explore and close a sale, I am respectfully withdrawing my offer to purchase Wembley Stadium."

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                                      #20
                                      I wouldn't be surprised if it is. It could also be a way of getting the NFL's help in the negotiations.

                                      Given the way that NFL owners have come to rely on massive subsidies from thirsty US municipalities, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Khan expects a ridiculously favourable deal.

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                                        #21
                                        Indeed. There has been talk that this is all about moving the Jags to Wembley. He denies it, apparently, but I can't see how that's not a strong possibility. The NFL wants a team in London. The Jags are the most likely candidate. And, as mentioned above, there's not going to be another massive stadium built in London.

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                                          #22
                                          Haven't municipalities started pulling back from shovelling huge amounts of cash into the greedy maws of NFL owners? I didn't think it was just San Diego. Is this why they're now trying it on outside of the US?

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                                            #23
                                            Some have and some haven't, which is why teams move.

                                            That's the problem. Individual cities or states refusing to give away public money are just unilaterally disarming, so to speak. It puts politicians in a tough spot. Nobody wants to be the one that gave away all that money that could have gone to schools or whatever, but nobody wants to be the one that allowed a beloved local institution disappear. The existence or non-existence of a team, especially one that has played in a city for a long time is a lot more tangible to people - at least the people who vote and pay for political campaigns - than the opportunity cost of whatever was forgone in order to pay for the stadium. In a lot of cases, the money comes from a hotel tax or something like that,* so it's spread around and hard to calculate exactly the opportunity cost of spending that on the stadium. And a lot of the chronic problems that cities face - schools, infrastructure, etc. - continue to be major problems regardless of whether they spend a few million or even a billion on a stadium, partly because lack of funding isn't the only source of those problems and partly because, in the long-run for a big city, a billion dollars isn't that much money. (Don't get me wrong. It's a lot and it's a travesty that any public money is going to private capitalists without any real hope of ROI, but most voters go with their gut and their gut often says they want a team).

                                            So the solution has to be national or, perhaps, international. I know Obama wanted to do something by changing the tax status of certain municipal bonds but I'm not sure what happened with that or if that would be effective. Some kind of law stating "no public money for private stadiums" wouldn't pass the current clusterfuck in Washington and might be easy to get around anyway.

                                            *A lot of stadiums, etc, get big tax breaks, and that is counted by stadium-opponents as a public cost. But it seems to me that, in a lot of cases, the land that the stadium is developing wasn't going to be developed any other way and that any developer of anything - a stadium, a block of apartments, a shopping center, etc. - wasn't going to do it without those tax breaks. So the option wasn't really to get that tax income or not, but to allow a spot to remain undeveloped - or even empty - or not.

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                                              #24
                                              Shouldn't the Chargers be favourites to move to London given the lack of interest in LA?

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                                                #25
                                                SB may have followed this more closely, but I believe they are locked in as a junior tenant at Kronkeworld for several years.

                                                The Jets have been bitching about a similar arrangement in the Meadowlands for decades and are still there.

                                                Khan has genuine interest in, and ties to, London, while Stockton, California's own Dean Spanos most definitely does not.

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