Grounds for change?

With the Wembley Stadium project in crisis, there is talk of football's national stadium moving outside London.

BBC Sport Online evaluates the five leading venues for a national stadium.

1. London. Plan is to build a new stadium on the existing Wembley site and £120m of lottery money has already been spent buying the land.

London is an internationally renowned city with lots of entertainment, accommodation and interest for visitors.

Problem is that the Wembley site has very poor road links. New roads would need to be built at great cost.

Building costs are also very expensive in London. And many fans find London inaccessible.

Another venue being touted is Picketts Lock in North London, where there are proposals to build the new national athletics stadium.

But that site has worse transport links than Wembley.

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2. Birmingham. Emerging as a strong contender to London. Birmingham City Council is very keen for the stadium to be built in their city.

If it was, then it is likely that any stadium would be based on Sir Norman Foster's original designs for a new Wembley.

It would be built next to the National Exhibition Centre, just off the M42 motorway next to Birmingham International mainline rail station and the city's international airport.

Andy Howell, deputy leader of the council, said: "The road, rail and air infrastructure are all within walking distance of the site."

Birmingham would be popular with fans in the North of England, who would find it much more accessible than London.

And land and building costs would be much cheaper than in the capital.

Howell said a stadium in Birmingham could be built at "a fraction of the cost" of one in London.

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3. Manchester. A new stadium is being built for the city to host the Commonwealth Games in 2002.

It will then be used by Manchester City for their home games and could conceivably double up as a national football stadium.

But Sir Bob Scott, who led the city's bid for the Olympic Games, said that the city is not a realistic venue for a national football stadium.

"Ironically, I think Manchester is out of the equation," he admitted.

"The stadium will be not nearly big enough to be the headquarters of national football."

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4. Liverpool. There is a great passion for football in the city. And both Liverpool and Everton have announced ambitious plans for new stadiums.

Liverpool's proposal is for a 70,000-seater stadium just yards away from Anfield in Stanley Park.

This would be big enough for a national stadium - in fact the same size as Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

Everton are further forward with a plan for a 55,000-seater stadium at the King's dock on the waterfront, that has already been described as "The Venice of the North."

That would realistically be too small for a national stadium though.

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5. Coventry. Like Birmingham, Coventry has the advantage of being accessible from most parts of England and of being very close to Birmingham.

But the city is not well known abroad and does not have the attractions of the other cities.

Coventry City are planning to build a new 36,000 stadium in time for the 2003/ 2004 season. This would be far too small for a national stadium.

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